The Last Thor Story - 1
by Altariel1
Summary: An *AU* please note. In/around Thor 337 Odin removed Thor's secret identity, the surgeon Don Blake. Thor reacted in a certain way...but IMO he was well within his rights to react differently. What if he had done? Read on.
1. Default Chapter

FYI: This story is set in in a Marvel AU approximately 13 years after the events of Walt Simonson's Thor stories (Thor 337 etc.). It's based pretty closely upon Marvel canon, with the one twist: during Simonson's run, Thor's Don Blake' secret ID is removed from him by Odin, without his consent. In the comics he just acquiesces. This story assumes that no, he didn't; in fact he was VERY annoyed and reacted accordingly. Otherwise I've not bent Marvel canon that much out of shape. If you're a fan, you'll recognise the references.

  


Rated PG: some comic-book violence, some comic-book horror, a few mild sexual references, nothing explicit. References to deaths of known major characters. No bad language (that I remember). 

  


Disclaimers: Thor, Moondragon, Loki, various other super-powered beings mentioned herein, are the property of Marvel Comics, as is Jane Foster. I have no right to play with them, but I'm doing it anyway; I've got nothing that Marvel could possibly want. Other characters are my own invention and if Marvel want to use Gestalt', they'll have to pay ME royalties, sorry guys but you've got a lot more money than I have :)

  


Oh, in case you didn't know: yeah, I'm afraid the Thor/Moondragon business IS canonical. It happened in Avengers 220. One of the reasons I wrote this story is that I couldn't believe that even Marvel could do something this crassly stupid and then proceed to ignore it for the rest of time....

  


  


  


The Last Thor Story : a novella in six chapters. 

  


1.

  


Stella Haraldsson shook her head and turned her back on her husband. For the past ten minutes he had been crashing around throwing junk out of the bedroom closet; he was obviously looking for something, but his only answer to her query was a grunt. He was not normally a talkative man, so she did not realise that anything especially abnormal was going on; he was just being a silly old fool as usual. She shuffled back into the living room and flopped down again in front of the television. Then she saw him - seventy-six years old, in dressing gown and bedroom slippers - heading for the front door and the cold New York night. 

"Jon!" she shrieked. "Jon, it's dark out there and it's pouring with rain! Where do you think you're _going_, Jon? Come back!"

Stella wanted to jump to her feet to stop him, but by the time she had persuaded her arthritic legs to work the door had slammed behind him. "Jon...!" she murmured once again; then she let herself sit down again, heavily, with a little sob of despair. They were too old to be left on their own, her son kept saying. She always shook her head, told him to have some respect; but perhaps he was right. If Jon did not come back quickly he would get hypothermia in the storm out there. She would have to call the police to look for him as if he were a senile old wanderer. For the first time ever Stella feared that that was what her husband had become.

It took several seconds for Mrs. Haraldsson to register what had been most odd about Jon as he left the house. Not his attire; nor even the fact that he had been walking straight with his head high when the collapsed disc in his neck barely allowed him to raise his eyes above floor level. It was what he was holding. Jon had left the house carrying his old carpenter's mallet which had been stashed at the back of the closet since his retirement ten years before.

Fifteen minutes later the most brilliant lightning-flash of the whole wild night carved the sky in two above Jon Haraldsson's head. He stood alone in the centre of a vacant lot not two hundred yards from his home and his hands, holding the mallet, were lifted to the storm. Words tore themselves from his throat; words not spoken in his family in a thousand years. Thunder crashed in reply, echoing around the horizon for many seconds.

The thunderclap rolled into silence; soft rain slowed and stopped. Slowly, Jon lowered his arms. He looked around as far as the pain in his neck allowed him, desperate for landmarks. He had no memory of how he had come to this place, so dark and so wet and so cold. He had only the echo of his own words ringing in his ears: words he had never heard before and could not understand; words which had rung forth in the strong voice of a young man from his own old voice-box, from his own bronchitic lungs. And far away, as if beyond the world's edge, there was something else; yet it was not until the police found him an hour later that Jon placed that distant sound as laughter.

Soon after, though Jon showed no other symptoms of senility, the elderly couple moved to Newark to live with their son. There was no repetition of the events of that night. To both of them, Jon's journey into the storm remained a mystery.

  


The American doctor attended Sunday evening Mass as he always did. At first Father John McCarthy did not notice anything unusual about him. The doctor, like some other non-Catholics on the station, treated the service as an interval of peace and quiet when he could sit in silence and pray or meditate. He always sat at the back of the room and he never joined in the actions of the service. Instead he sat quietly with his eyes closed; it was often difficult to tell whether he was awake or asleep. But this time the priest realised long before the end of the service that something had changed. The doctor sat tense and rigid in his usual place, his impenetrable blue eyes staring blankly into the distance. What expression there was on his face suggested something not far short of terror. 

Father John was alarmed. His primary vocation was to bring help and healing to the local Indians, so reduced in numbers and so impoverished by one of South America's bloodier civil wars; but he never forgot that his co-workers - the lay nursing and medical staff and even the other members of the Order, his fellow priests and brothers - were also members of his parish. If the doctor were in trouble Father John liked to think that he would be able to help. But he also needed to be sure. When Mass was over he removed his vestments and then stood waiting, out of sight inside the converted longhouse's tiny vestry, watching for whatever the other man might do next.

The doctor remained in his seat quite deliberately as the rest of the congregation left the building. He did not move until the last of them had gone. Then he got slowly to his feet, picked up his waterproof poncho and pulled it on. After that he stood for a moment, staring blankly ahead. He shivered visibly, although he had not so much as glanced toward the door, nor at the teeming rainstorm which swept the compound outside the building. He gazed at his hands, shaking his head; then it was as if he reached some decision. He straightened himself, swiftly crossed the hard-packed earth floor and left the chapel. 

The priest quietly left the vestry and crossed to the door. Just outside he saw the doctor standing gazing up into the storm, eyes open to the rain. He stood like that for a few seconds; then suddenly he threw off his waterproof and stood unprotected in the downpour, arms upraised. Rainwater plastered his T-shirt to his broad shoulders and sluiced through his yellow hair; it dripped from his long pony-tail onto the small of his back. 

After what felt to Father John like half an hour, yet was probably less than half a minute, the doctor relaxed a little. He lowered his arms and shook his head again. Then he walked across the compound toward the whitewashed clinic building. Somewhere above, a flash and the growl of thunder heralded a wild night.

The priest followed. He wished he knew more about the other man; but, like all the mission's religious workers he had had difficulty forming any kind of relationship with him. It was not that the doctor avoided the priests and brothers, but rather that he became inhibited and uncommunicative around them. Even with his medical colleague, Dr. Suarez, he confined his conversation to professional matters; but then, Suarez was also a priest. 

All any of them had managed to glean about him was that he had trained in America; at Harvard, no less. He had been a well-regarded general surgeon once upon a time; but ten years before, for reasons of his own, he had decided to leave all that behind. For several years he had been a ship's doctor, working for some of the less prestigious merchant fleets; then he had somehow come into contact with the Order and decided to work for them. Father John had sought in vain for some explanation of this eccentric career. The suggestion that he might be an alcoholic, like so many who had suffered this kind of change of fortune, was simply absurd for one so strong and fit; while the only other common explanation, religious commitment, most definitely did not apply.

He was a brave man; no doubt of that. In his time with the Order he had accepted postings in some of the most dangerous and unstable areas of the world. He had been shot at by Genoshan magistrates, and Shining Path guerillas in Peru had made a determined attempt to kidnap him. On these and several similar occasions, by some miracle, he had escaped virtually unhurt. Yet even after the best part of seven years no-one from the Superior General to the newest scholastic had any idea what it was that drove this man to place himself at such risk. 

With many misgivings, completely unable to predict how the man might react to a direct approach, Father John decided that he had to try. It was his job. He had no wish to lose another lay worker; particularly one as talented as Donald Blake.

The priest caught up with his quarry just outside the clinic. he asked. Could I have a word?

Blake paused, though he did not turn to look at the priest. He unlocked the clinic door. I've a couple of minutes before surgery, he said. Come in. 

The invitation was not friendly; neither was it overtly hostile. Father John followed the doctor inside. Once the hurricane lamp was lit the consulting room looked almost cosy, despite the syringes and the steriliser and the locked case of bright steel instruments which adorned one wall. The doctor gestured toward the only seat as he used a surgical drape to towel-dry his hair.

The priest remained standing. To sit would have placed him at further disadvantage; the doctor, at 6ft. 7in., already towered over him. 

You think I'm in some sort of trouble, don't you? Blake sat down. Then he looked - without embarrassment or inhibition - straight up into Father John's face. There was something in that brilliant blue gaze - a light; a power ferociously suppressed - which the priest found immensely disturbing. The effect was momentary. The doctor looked away, staring instead at the stethoscope and patella hammer which lay upon his desk. He shook his head; then slowly he picked up the first of those instruments and hung it about his neck. You were going to say...? he added.

Father John realised, far too late, that he had misread the situation. Whatever else might be going on, this was not a man in trouble. The doctor gave the impression that he knew exactly what he was doing. Ah, yes, but...

I know you followed me. I don't mind. I also know, after all this time, that I tend to...wear my heart upon my sleeve. Inscrutability is not one of my...talents. I appreciate your concern, Father, but I do not need your help. I simply cannot continue to pretend to be something I am not. Or rather...I can no longer pretend not to be something which I...am.

The priest persisted, though he was more puzzled than ever by the doctor's last statement. The people really appreciate the medical side of our work, Doctor. You know they do. You've done so much for them. It's not as if we were clearing the forests for cattle, or forcing them to grow coca for the cartels... Much as he wished to, he did not add, Unlike most replacements we are likely to get, you are good at your job...

I know. I have no problem with our work here. I have seen many idealistic young workers come; and then go, when they decide we are just another variety of imperialist. I know we are more than that; and I know that these people have little other chance of receiving good medical care. But...things have changed. I have reached the end of my time here. If I do not go now it will be too late.

If it's your family, you can take as much leave as you like. You don't have to quit. Take three months. Even six. Sort things out, then you could come back.

Thank you for the offer, but I cannot. It's not family. As I told your superior before I accepted the post, I have no family. Not any more. But I know I have things to do, away from here. Suarez can cope until you find a replacement. I _have_ to_ go_.

Is there anything I can do? You'll need to arrange transport, that kind of thing.

I will see to my own transportation, Father. I'm sorry. I have made up my mind.

The priest conceded defeat. The two men exchanged a few polite pleasantries; then the first patient arrived. Blake greeted her fluently in the local language, giving no further attention to the priest. Father John had no choice. He left the doctor to get on with his work.

Two hours later the surgery finished. Dr. Blake doused the lamps, locked up and walked across the compound to his hut. Although his body did not tire easily, in spirit he felt weary to the bone; but he did not go to bed. Instead he pulled a small trunk from the storage alcove; then he fished inside his still damp clothing for the chain on which he kept his keys. Inside the trunk was an old black leather bag, like the bag of any doctor in general practice. This, like the trunk, he unlocked with a key from his neck-chain. 

It is time, he murmured aloud. He rested his hands on the fastening of the bag for a moment, as if half afraid to open it. He lifted his head, squared his shoulders. Then came the moment of no return. He flung wide the mouth of the bag and reached within to withdraw a bundle wrapped in red silk.

The contents of the bundle glowed faintly; either that, or the doctor's face acquired a sudden inner light. Oh, I have missed you, he murmured; it was as if he addressed a sentient being other than himself. I did not know how much. He parted the silken covering and drew forth the object that reposed within.

For a minute and more he gazed upon it: upon the reality whose image always interposed itself between his eyes and any strange altar. Ten years it was since he had last set eye or hand upon it; ten years since the War and the world's ending and the death of all his kin. Ten years since he had lost his father, in truth this time and not in seeming; for his exile had ended only with that death. Late had he come to the final battlefield, and there he had closed his Lord's dead eyes. But late in time someone had called to him; and so _she_ called to him. Mjolnir's name rang in his mind; the Hammer leaped in his hand; the thunder and the lightning overhead cried out once more to their rightful lord. Whatever the future might hold, whatever might come to pass, he remained Thor Odinsson; and he was still worthy. 

The storm raged with the coming of midnight; and those who, seeing his dwelling struck by the fire from heaven, sought to rescue their taciturn doctor, found his ruined home deserted and his few belongings scattered.

  


In the House of Solitude, far beyond the fields we know, a dark figure gazed into the Fire of Vision, striving for the perfection which her teacher demanded. The Fire was one of the more difficult scrying-tools to master, he had said; yet he had been delighted with her progress and she yearned to please him by putting his lessons to use.

At last she struck the right degree of concentration. At its very heart, the fire calmed; it formed first a lazy spiral, then a smooth surface which flowed ever outward from its centre to become a shining pool of reddish-orange, a mirror of burnished copper. In that mirror images danced. As the girl's meditation deepened these images became more sharp; they were bright and distant, yet absolutely clear. The apprentice knew at once that she had succeeded. There, in the very centre of the mirror, was her quarry, the one she hated. And the mirror obeyed her. It showed her the past; and that past replayed itself as her master had revealed it to her, as it had happened upon that day of shame, that day when, she knew not how long ago, she had been conceived. 

The green-clad woman was her mother, the apprentice knew. It was not the first time nor the second that she had viewed the scene, yet she could not stifle a cry as she watched, helpless: the beating, the tearing of clothes, the mad face of her father, the rapist. There too was the broken figure of the one who had become her true father and her teacher; struck down from behind, he had been unable to defend the woman from the madman's attack. 

The act complete, the man made his escape, believing his victims dead. Yet had this been the case, the apprentice knew, she would never have been born. Instead, the couple revived within a few moments of one another. While their lives continued, they had been destroyed. The man had possessed the means to spirit her from that terrible place and grant her shelter until her child was born, but the woman had never recovered from the assault. Insane, wandering, capable neither of speech nor of caring for her baby, she had been impossible to guard for ever. In the end, the madman had found her. Knowing what she could tell should she ever recover her wits, he had recruited a circle of evil sorcerers to dispatch her for ever into darkness as a sacrifice to their wicked gods. The Fire had granted that foul sight to the apprentice as well, in days gone by; that sacrifice by sword and flame, carried out by beings who themselves burned like demons. The apprentice would never seek that vision again; she had no need. The memory would ever be with her. Soon her foster-father would send her to wreak her justified revenge. He had planned it so that it could not fail; and joyfully she would carry out the task. He had said that the time was near. 

From the shadows of the Fire-temple another figure watched, adding further satisfaction to that which he already felt at his day's work. The sorcerer regarded his protegée's ability with something like awe. She was almost as good as himself; in the future she might even be more. But until that day came he knew that he was safe. The Fire showed, as it always did, exactly what he caused it to show: nothing more and nothing less. If she lived she would be more than he, and all would be revealed; but his apprentice, his foster-daughter, would not see that day. He knew that he was safe. 

  


So when did you get back? Even now, almost a day after his arrival, Tony Stark could barely believe he was talking to his old friend in the flesh. How many years since they had met face to face? Since then there had been a few letters; one or two emails written on borrowed equipment; all from places in the back of beyond. He smiled. Thor looked well; he appeared relaxed and confident as he sat and drank his coffee, a different person from the bereaved and broken man Tony remembered from their last encounter. The casual clothing suited him. He had even acquired a sun-tan; something Tony had not known was possible.

Just before I rang you last night. Short of going to the YMCA, I had little choice. I don't know who is with the Avengers these days, nor if they would welcome me to their dwelling. In fact, I don't even know if there _is_ an Avengers any more. And hotels are, well...

You're broke. Tony Stark could not help it; the idea was too bizarre. He grinned at his friend.

Almost. But not for long, Tony. I have had a successful day. The medical staff agency was very helpful. I start work tonight.

Don't worry about it. I meant what I said, last night when you arrived. You can stay as long as you like. This place is far too big for one person, really.

The penthouse apartment was silent for a moment. Late afternoon sunlight made rainbow pools on the parquet floor, refracted by raindrops which still clung to the glass from the morning's storm. Thor had arrived back in New York to appropriate weather; a circumstance which he had assured his friend was purely coincidental. Neither man wished to comment further on the former Iron Man's last remark. Tony Stark, rich, brilliant, alcoholic, had had many affairs but no success in long-term relationships. Now more than fifty years old, he had resigned himself, unwillingly, to childlessness and bachelorhood. He and Thor, still, after all the years that had gone by, understanding one another perfectly, conspired in silence to let the moment pass. 

Thor drained his coffee cup. That was excellent, Tony. The best cup of coffee I have had in ten years, I swear...

So let's hear it. You promised that when we had time to talk you would tell me what has brought you back. I'm glad to see you, you can't know how glad; but after what happened I didn't expect...

Uh, well...I have a career on hold...

Yes, Tony. Stark, Thor thought, was altogether too perceptive. Sorry. Habit. I am back...because I was, well, _summoned_. I do not know by whom, nor why; simply that the summoner was here, in New York. I could no more resist than I could cease to be who I am through sheer willpower. Straight away I found I could no longer continue a charade...which I had forgotten was a charade. Now I'm here I can do nothing but wait.

Ah...You're looking for a sign! Tony grinned again; then the expression froze. He felt foolish. Such flippancy was entirely misplaced, he could tell from Thor's face.

Those from whom I might have expected such a thing are gone, my friend. They cannot call to me from Hela's halls. And who else would stoop to grant omens to one such as I?

Tony Stark could think of nothing to say.

Thor continued. So as I said, all I can do is wait, however long it takes. That is why I thought I should find work. The call has faded as though it had never been. All I know is that it happened...

Once again there was silence. Outside the great window of the apartment's living room many small grey clouds hurried across the pale sky, like a stampede of dirty sheep. The wind was fierce at this height. Thor's occult senses told him more rain was heading their way. It would be stormy again ere long, without any interference from him. 

Tony Stark spoke again, slowly, picking his words. I don't know what...Is there no-one you can ask? What of...ah...

Of Asgard? After Ragnarok? There were survivors, true. Balder and his few companions, and their children. They live in a keep in the land of the Norns, where Karnilla grants her lover refuge. You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?

Tony Stark shook his head slowly. Despite himself he was fascinated. Thor had seldom spoken freely about his homeland in the old days; and this was the first time he had so much as mentioned it to any of his old friends since the disaster.

Karnilla is a witch; beautiful and amoral, the way witches are supposed to be. I think Balder truly loves her; but they have a miserable life compared to the glories of the ancient court. Ragnarok was not as the Eddas describe; and nor is its aftermath. Those prophecies were written down too late in time. They speak of a new heaven, of a new Asgard raised from the rubble of the old; but the skalds who wrote of it were each and every one of them Christians. They made our future in their own image...

Tony Stark raised both eyebrows.

Thor shifted in his seat. Do you think I don't know what it says in the Bible, Tony? he said quietly. That's where the idea came from. Those old stories have nothing to do with my poor people. Whatever Odin once had us believe. It is nothing like that. 

Then what... Tony wanted to change the subject; he did not like the dull note, like resignation, which he detected in his friend's voice. But he sensed there were things which the thunder god needed to say. You said there were survivors, that they had a King... 

Oh, no. Balder leads them, but he does not call himself King. He _cannot_. The Power did not come upon him when Odin died, any more than it came upon me. That Power cannot be destroyed. Its Source lies beyond all worldly knowledge and it cannot be spoken of without blasphemy. Thor grimaced. Or at least, that is what my father taught me. Yet I know Odin did not simply return his Power to the Source, for only his personal enchantments died with him. His greater magics, forged by the Power, still hold. He did not send it forth from the world; he concealed it, in some place far beyond my knowledge. And so I sought to lose myself amid the toils of Midgard. But it is not possible. It never was. This summoning', if such it is, is just a reminder of this fact.

Tony Stark gazed at his friend in wonder. He had known the thunder god for many years: since the very foundation of the Avengers. He and Thor had supported one another through so many personal and public disasters that each owed the other more than could ever be repaid; though, being friends, neither of them kept account. Despite all he knew in theory, it was immensely hard for Tony Stark to think of his friend as anything but another man. True, he had extraordinary abilities; but the former Iron Man knew so many people with such abilities. This talk of Powers and Sources made his head spin.

Tony could not in the end trust himself to comment. That's a long speech for you, my friend. This business has reopened old wounds. Am I right?

Thor got up from his seat and stood before the window, hammer in hand. The sky was darkening from the west. The storm was almost upon them. On an impulse, Thor reached out the limbs of his mind to it to deflect it from its course. As on the previous day when he had called the storm to take him from the mission compound, he found it almost extraordinary that his power still held. The western sky brightened a little. It has come upon me so suddenly...And, to return to your question, there is no-one among the orphans of Asgard who might seek out the source of my call. None of them have such skill. Our diviners were Odin and Loki; and it is years now since I kindled their funeral pyres. Balder would tell me to ask Karnilla, but I would trust a hyaena before I would trust that one.

Love is beyond all reason, as we both know...I left because I could not live in that place, under the patronage of that woman. I know too much about her; and I have made such errors before, in the dim past. For all that I have thought to return, more than once; yet I know I would feel the intruder. After Ragnarok, none knew how to speak to me, the heir whose father's power was withheld from him. They were puzzled and ashamed for me, and they avoided my presence. I am certain none of them was responsible for this.

It has been a long time coming. Perhaps you simply couldn't stand to be without your powers any longer.

My own mind may have done this? It's certainly possible, Tony. Meanwhile I shall wait, and see. Nothing may happen. But truly, I doubt it.

Tony looked on as his friend turned from watching the weather. As Thor stood with his back to the window the sky began to clear and the sun shone. It cast the thunder god's face into shadow and turned his golden hair into an aureole about his head. For a moment even Tony Stark found it hard to believe that this exile of another realm could be as full of doubt as any human; yet he knew Thor far too well to believe such nonsense. While he was no longer in the state of shock in which he had first decided to forswear the use of his powers, the man was still haunted. The appearance of optimism, the rediscovered self-confidence, was just a front. Tony wondered if his friend would ever truly heal. 

So...Will you continue to live as Blake for now?

Yes. Until I have reason to do anything else. It has served me for thirteen years or more; ever since I turned my back on Odin and he on me. It's convenient. My passport and identity papers, the medical license, the little bureaucratic details of my life, are all in that name. Nick Fury's work, of course. I heard he retired. I must pay him a visit; I owe him much.

I'm sure he'd like that...You haven't decided to re-register as Odinsson, then? After all, they know already. It would be a mere formality...

Tony, I _don't_ think so... 

Tony Stark was cheered to see his friend's grin at this suggestion. It was the first time since his arrival that Thor had smiled. 

At five p.m. Thor decided that he had to ready himself for his night shift. The medical staff agency always had more vacancies on its books than it could hope to fill. Once they had verified his identity it had taken them less than half an hour to find him three weeks' locum work in the emergency room of the County Hospital, to cover for the resident, Frank Steadman, who had broken a leg playing football. Dr. Blake' had become well accustomed over the years to dealing with new people and new and strange situations; to work in the most unlikely and alarming of conditions. To work in an American emergency room, for all it was not in a hospital where he had worked before, was practically to return home. As he bathed and dressed in the clothes he had bought with the last of his savings that morning, he looked forward to the night.

  


The apprentice answered her master's summons. He, her teacher, had called; and she as ever would obey. She found him sitting in the Fire-temple observing events on earth; but as soon as she entered the Hall of Vision he turned from his scrying and allowed the flame to burn free. The apprentice waited patiently for his attention. As she watched, her master, her foster-father, stood; and there was a strange light in his eyes. 

Do you trust me, child?

Father, as ever I trust you with my life.

Then come. It is time. The sorcerer smiled. He was delighted by the anticipation he read upon his apprentice's face. He had trained her well; she would do his bidding freely and with joy.

Together they left the Temple. The House was well defended against intrusion. There was only one Gate; one way in or out. The Lord of the stronghold thought the security his occult defences provided well worth the minor inconvenience they caused. Master and apprentice climbed the Highest Stair to the Hall of Magicks. There, the sorcerer bade his foster-daughter stand within the Circle of the Barbarous Names. She obeyed, suppressing the questions which rose unbidden to her lips. She watched from within the sacred precinct as her master raised his arms above his head and called upon the Powers.

Immediately the apprentice felt her form dissolving, awareness slipping away. Almost she cried out to protest against this abrupt sending, for she realised in that final moment that her master did not intend to tell her anything more. But she had told the truth; she trusted him; and she kept her counsel as his potent magicks enfolded her being and stripped from her the only world she knew.

  


Thor had worked in the Third World for the best part of ten years, so he expected to find equipment in the emergency room that he had never seen before and other items which he had forgotten how to use. He expected pitying looks from the nurses as he struggled with the high-tech skills he had not practised for so long. He expected blood, grief, drunks, trauma, psychiatric cases and no time for a meal break. All these things he, as a professional, could and would cope with. 

As he said to Tony later, what he should have remembered was that in this job, he should always expect the unexpected.

In the early part of the night, as he strove to get to grips with the environment and the very different nature of the work from that of the bush clinics, he caught the department's head nurse staring at him on several occasions. One of the interns told him all about her. Her name was Shirley Baxter and the Emergency Room was her kingdom. She liked order, calm and efficiency in her subjects. Thor assumed that her glances at him indicated disapproval at the invasion of her domain by a locum who must seem to her no more than marginally competent. He assumed that the only way to win her over would be to acclimatise himself rapidly and earn her respect. 

Shirley said very little to him over the first few hours of the shift. She greeted him and ensured she had his name right. She called him to see patients and just about managed to avoid giving the impression that she was supervising him. Once, very politely but in a manner which suggested that he had damned well better know next time, she showed him how to operate some long-forgotten equipment. Not many Third World clinics possessed blood gas analysis facilities. 

Until three a.m. that was all the contact Thor had with her. Then the department fell quiet. Most bars had closed and the drunks had all gone home. Traffic was quietening down and even the criminals had decided it was bedtime. There were still patients lying on gurneys waiting for beds, but there was nothing going on in the ER that the interns could not handle. Thor decided to get something to eat; but as he approached the door of the staff room he heard the head nurse call to him. 

She did not sound pleased. Dr. Blake! _Blake_! I want a word with you!

Thor turned and saw Shirley pounding along the corridor, a scowl disfiguring her striking half-caste features. She was five feet tall wearing heels, almost two feet shorter than he was; but her manner more than made up for her lack of inches. It was obvious why most people in the emergency room - and especially the interns - were terrified of her.

Doctor Donald Blake. Shirley's black eyes flashed upward with the appearance of divine wrath. A word. In my office. Now. Not for a moment did she believe that he would not obey her. With a peremptory beckoning gesture she walked away and slammed into a room on the left-hand side of the corridor. 

Thor stood nonplussed for a moment. He could not think what might have provoked this outburst. However rusty he might be in some ways, he had caused no disasters; he had done his job, even if he had not done it brilliantly. But even if it were only a case of night shift caffeine overdose, in his current position he felt that he could do little but comply. This was not his department; there was nothing to be gained and much to be lost by a heavy doctor' act. It would make his job impossible for the next three weeks and it might make that of his injured colleague more difficult in the future. He followed Shirley through the door. 

The head nurse was seated at her desk. Thor paused in surprise; the office was not at all what he would have expected from the nurse's volatile public demeanour. The floor was covered with a Chinese rug in shades of mint-green, grey and pink; the remainder of the decor echoed these soothing pastels in a fashion which was both cool and feminine. On a bookshelf behind the desk stood a coffee machine; also statuettes and tribal masks, recognisably Yoruba work, indicating an interest on the nurse's behalf in her African roots. The wall above the shelf displayed several frames containing not school and college certificates but photographs; professional quality photographs evidently culled from some newspaper's files. They all showed superheroes; some depicted in violent action, others in posed publicity shots. These included, right above Shirley's head as she sat at the desk, a portrait study of Thor himself. Slowly, taking all this in, he crossed the room.

To his surprise, Shirley smiled at him. Take a seat, she said. 

Thor sat down.

I owe you an apology, Doctor.

Thor thought that indeed she did, but it would have been impolitic to say as much just yet.

I...uh, have developed a style for myself. You may have heard. There is something I have to talk to you about, but it's not quite... One of the snottiest nursing students in the department was right behind me. I thought I had better keep up appearances...Well, there it is. Childish, I know. I hope you'll forgive me.

said Thor. He thought that perhaps he should have been annoyed; instead he had to suppress a laugh. Hospital political games, on however minor a level, had not changed in his absence. What was the problem?

Well, Doctor...Don. I hope I may call you that...Let's put it this way. I believe in _honesty_ and _trust_ between co-workers; don't you?

Ye-es. Within reason I do... Thor felt a touch of unease. Not wishing to meet the nurse's eye he looked instead at the top of her desk, taking in for the first time the things which stood on it. There was a personal computer as well as a pad of blotting-paper and some conventional writing implements; and there was a framed photograph, so arranged that he could see the picture. It showed a middle-aged couple of mixed race and two beautiful teenage girls who had to be their daughters. One of the daughters bore an uncanny resemblance to Shirley Baxter. And the lined and careworn face of the man in the picture was perfectly familiar to Thor. He placed it and looked up, amazed, just as the nurse began to speak again. 

I didn't mean to bring that up, but I guess it's as good a start as any...Don, you know that man, don't you? Don't deny it. I saw your face.

Yes. Yes, Shirley, I know him. Now Thor felt real anger, but he suppressed it firmly. Losing his temper had got him into too much trouble in the past. It was, he hoped, no longer something he did. None the less, his voice was tight as he continued. A relative of yours, is he?

Yes, he certainly is. Don, my real name is Shirley Hobbs Baxter. She raised her left hand, and for the first time Thor took in the wedding band on the third finger. That photo shows my mom and me and my sister Angela; and my dad. I know you've met my father Harris...He took that photograph. Shirley indicated the portrait of Thor, above her head. Do you remember...Don?

Thor shrugged faintly. He felt trapped. Above all, he could not imagine what this woman might want. Finally it came out. I remember. I also remember Harris swearing himself to silence. His last experience of tangling with my...family was almost enough for him. It was quite difficult to persuade him to help me after that.

Oh, Don, you've got me all wrong...I'm not some super-menace. I'm just Shirley Baxter, failed med student turned head nurse of the ER night shift, and I believe in honesty between co-workers. Also, you might think that if I wanted a public confrontation, I picked a strange place for it. If I wanted this spread around I would have used the staff room. Anything heard in there is round the hospital at the speed of light. This office is private, Don._ Nobody_ comes in here unless I ask them. I need that much, in this job. And...Harris is my father. He had a terrible experience. He lost two colleagues and it was _your_ father's fault. I know it wasn't your fault; Dad said you were as shocked as anyone; but still...How could you expect him not to tell anyone, not ever, not even his closest family? It wouldn't be...human to expect that. And I'm prepared to believe, with my father I might tell you, that whatever else you are, you are a compassionate...person. Surely you can understand.

Yes. I understand. Shirley...I can't do anything to put things right. All I can do is tell you that my father paid the price for his...miscalculation. Oh yes, he paid. Thor paused. It was his turn. He died ten years ago. Along with the rest of my family.

The nurse's face paled beneath her colouring. I didn't know. How could I...

You could not. It was three years after the last time I saw your father. There was a war; it happened...elsewhere. Most of my people died. That's why I dropped out of sight for so long. And it is part of the reason I am here now, if you want to know...

Don, I...

Forget it, Shirley. It's an old, sad story...like your father's fate. Now I know who you are...well, you had the right to ask. And I do understand why Harris told you. I don't suppose he expected you to end up working with me.

Hardly. But Don...even if I had known I might have done the same thing. I have my own rules. By them, it just wouldn't have been right for me to work with you - and it could be several weeks before Frank Steadman is fit for duty, I've heard - without telling you what I know. And it won't go any further, you have my solemn word on that. If anyone else finds out, it won't be from me. Or from Dad.

How is he? Thor relaxed a little. It's been years... 

He told me about that as well. When he went with you and the others to the A.M.A. That must have been a _bizarre_ interview...

It was. I don't think the Governing Council knew quite what had hit them, particularly when Nick Fury got going...He blew cigar smoke in the Chairman's face at one point. I thought we would all get thrown out...Harris's photographic evidence was vital. I don't believe they would have allowed me to reactivate Blake's registration without it.

Ah yes...the photographs. He always seemed a bit guilty about keeping them.

One time we met, he swore that he had destroyed the pictures. I have reason now to be grateful to his newsman's devious mind. What he told me was the literal truth; he did indeed destroy the pictures. But he kept the negatives, locked away in his safe deposit box. I am more thankful than I can say that he did so...

Shirley laughed merrily. That is just Dad all over! But... She became solemn again. Shortly after that interview he took early retirement. He's only sixty now, but he was never the same...You might have noticed last time. He lost some vital spark. He spends most of his time gardening and watching football, does a bit of painting. Even sold a couple; I keep telling him he should take it more seriously, but he doesn't seem to have the energy.

"When you see him...Tell him I think of him. Tell him...he has been a better friend to me than he can possibly know."

"I will...Don. You know, I think he'll like that. I think he'll like it a great deal. Now...Would you like some coffee? I left Pam Sheridan in charge. She'll page us if we're needed."

"I would, thanks."

They sipped their drinks in silence for a few minutes. Thor contemplated an unique situation. For the first time in his earthly career somebody had revealed that they knew precisely who he was, without any sign of wanting something or of attempting to threaten him. He discovered that he had no idea how to react.

"Don? Do you have it with you? May I see it?"

"Huh?" Thor roused himself from his reverie. "Do I have what, Shirley?"

He looked so baffled that it was all the nurse could do not to laugh. "Your hammer...Don. May I see it?"

In the circumstances, it would have been churlish in the extreme to refuse her request. "...Yes. Wait a moment."

Thor went to the men's locker room and returned with his briefcase. He opened it and extracted the silken bundle which concealed Mjolnir; then he unwrapped the hammer and placed it on the head nurse's desk. "You can't hold it," he explained. "It is far too heavy. But you may touch it if you wish."

Shirley placed her hand upon the hammer's head with extreme gentleness, as though handling eggs. "It isn't like stone or metal at all," she said. Her voice trembled a little. "It's warm. I can feel something, Don. Some power." She paled again and moved her hand away hurriedly. "Wow. Don, that's...I could feel a great power beating just beneath the surface, like a vast heart..." She sat for a moment staring, her mouth open. Just for once, Shirley Baxter was speechless.

Thor looked at her for a moment. Then he made a decision. This woman had the right; more so than most people. "Would you like to see what this 'power' can do?" he asked.

"Oh, _yes_...!" 

"I do not do this lightly," Thor said. "But the night is windy and cold and the rain is pouring down. Many would be grateful if it were to...moderate." He stood and turned to the window, where both of them could see belated passers-by in the road a floor below struggling against the unpleasant March weather. 

Shirley switched the light off and joined him just in time to see a vortex of cloud form far above the city. Thor raised the hammer above his head. Mjolnir glowed with a soft flickering aura, as if a storm struggled to escape from within it. Sheet lightning flashed and illumined the entire sky; thunder rolled; wind blew so strongly that the casement rattled. The rain lashed down for a moment in the wake of the gust; and then it was over. The clouds parted; the rain stopped; the moon shone down on the newly quiet night. 

"Oh!" Shirley opened her mouth and closed it again; then, as Thor lowered his hammer and the wind died down outside, she said, "Oh!" again. Then she could do no more. She gazed at the man beside her. His surgical scrubs were rumpled and stained with blood or something worse; his ponytail was years out of fashion and made him look like some middle-aged hippie; yet the hammer in his hands still shone with a sourceless light which his face reflected and even amplified. His eyes gazed into hers across a gulf of strangeness and of more years than she could fathom; for a moment she could not remember how she had ever thought him human. 

Yet as 'Dr. Blake', he was unassuming, even diffident. No wonder nobody recognised him. Shirley Baxter just stared.

"Don't be afraid, Shirley. You wanted to see; and now you do. Donald Blake used to be another body, a shell; now he is merely another name and a disguise. This is what I am." 

Still awestruck, Shirley Baxter stepped forward. Thor saw straight away that she was about to fall upon her knees. He put out a hand gently to prevent her. Once, like all his race, he had been young and foolish enough to enjoy this reaction. Nowadays it appalled him.

"But you are...you are..." Shirley said.

"I am Thor, born a prince and now an exile of dead Asgard. And...I am your fellow worker, and your equal, in this place. Never forget that. I no longer look for worship. From anyone; and from you and your colleagues least of all. Consider only this..." He looked into her eyes again and was pleased that this time she did not flinch away. "Could you ever work with me again if you knelt before me now? You could not. And you must not do it. You have not told me his name, Shirley, but I know who your God is. And it is not the Thunderer. Is it?"

"No." The nurse's voice was tiny but firm enough. "Sorry. I just...I mean...I've heard so much about you, from Dad and from the papers...about your doings with the Avengers and all that, years ago. I'm still used to thinking of you as a superhero. A costumed crime-fighter. Back then we seemed to need more every year, things got so much more dangerous every year...You were just one more. But it's quite different when you're actually confronted..." Shirley went back to her desk and sat down heavily. She shivered. "I thought you were a_ superhero_..." she murmured.

"Yes," Thor said, though he spoke to himself as much as to the nurse. "There are very few people who willingly believe anything else."

Just then, an alarm sounded over the tannoy which connected the head nurse's office to the rest of the department. Some spell was broken. Thor and Shirley Baxter looked at each other. "Code blue," the nurse said. 

"One moment." Thor placed his hammer back in its case. "Once, as your father will have told you, I had to take on quite a different appearance to treat a casualty. In those days, when I wore this body I wore Thor's fighting costume as well. It wouldn't have done to turn up to an arrest like that..."

"No, I suppose it wouldn't!"

They left the room and walked toward the resuscitation suite. "It wouldn't," Thor continued, "Mostly because it would have caused a sensation. But I used to have nightmares about that."

"Nightmares?!" After the display she had just witnessed, Shirley Baxter could not have been more astonished if Don - _Thor_ - had told her he suffered from athlete's foot. 

"Yes. I several times dreamed that I was walking down the street - costumed as Thor, with hammer and helmet - when an accident or sudden illness overcame someone nearby; and that I pushed my way through the crowd, still as Thor, saying, 'Let me through! I'm a doctor...'." Thor grinned at his companion. 

Shirley said, "Good grief!" Then she burst out laughing. By the time they reached the casualty reception area nurse and doctor were quite at ease with each other again.

The resuscitation suite was in a state of controlled chaos, though as yet there was no patient. He, or she, was on his way in by ambulance and the paramedics had called ahead for preparations to be made. Several nurses were already at work. Drugs were drawn up, intravenous infusions were run through and the crash cart was ready. Thor checked over everything as much for the sake of his own reorientation as anything else. It was years since he had led an arrest team at a western hospital. He knew he had to trust the staff to do it right. 

"What have we got?" he asked of no-one in particular.

"Young woman with an M.I." A staff nurse gave him the information. "Picked up five minutes ago. Having arrhythmias. They've given morphine and lidocaine IV push as per protocol, and she's so rocky that they thought they should call her in. Should be here any second."

"Right." 

A siren became audible in the distance, approaching rapidly. Moments later the ambulance screeched to a halt at the entrance. A paramedic jumped out, shouting for help. "Gimme a hand here, guys! She's arrested!"

Nursing staff moved forward and in moments the limp form of the casualty was manhandled onto a gurney and wheeled through into the resuscitation area. Thor asked Shirley to continue CPR while he checked out the IV line the paramedics had inserted. An intern breathed for the patient with an oxygen bag and mask. 

Someone attached the casualty to a cardiac monitor. A nurse squinted at the trace. "Asystole," she said.

The words came into his head from some long-forgotten textbook. "Epinephrine one milligram IV push," Thor said without looking up. Someone passed him a syringe from the crash cart. Checking quickly that it was the drug he had ordered, he injected it directly into the intravenous line; then he attached one of the prepared infusion sets and switched it full on, to flush the drug into the patient's system. Shirley continued cardiac compressions. Thor allowed one minute of CPR and then ordered the nurse to stop so he could check the heart rhythm. "Fine VF. Epinephrine again," he said. 

He allowed a further two minutes of CPR. "Hold up," he said. Shirley stopped compressions. "Coarse VF; great. Charge the paddles," Thor said. 

The nurse restarted compressions while the defibrillator was prepared. Thor took the paddles from the nurse behind him and placed them on the patient's chest, mildly surprised even as he did so that he remembered the routine. "Clear," he said; then he delivered the shock.

"We've got a rhythm!" somebody shouted. 

The resuscitation had been straightforward enough for a medical soap-opera; so perhaps, Thor thought, it was not surprising that it _sounded_ like one as well. He looked at the monitor. "Sinus, yet. Good work, everyone. How's she doing up top?"

"She's breathing!" exclaimed the intern at the patient's head. "She just took a breath, Dr. Blake. I think she's coming round."

"Great...Anyone know who she is?" Thor asked.

One of the ambulance crew produced a purse belonging to the patient. "She's Sophie Douglas, of Freetown, New Jersey. Here's her ID and driver's license, and her Blue Cross insurance. Bit of money, nothing much. VISA and AMEX, though. And a Filofax. She just collapsed in the street...

Someone in the background muttered, "At three-thirty a.m.?"

"...nobody with her."

"Anything on next of kin? asked Shirley Baxter.

"Just an aunt - in England, yet. It says to contact her college in any emergency. She's at some little community college in Freetown."

"That'll have to wait until morning, then. CCU staff can do it. All right..."

She was interrupted by an exclamation from one of the other nurses. "Hey, you guys...Just how the heck old is this girl? She's just a kid!"

Thor looked at his patient for the first time as a living being. He took in the appearance of the heart-attack victim lying there: her aristocratic young face, which would have been beautiful in health, grey with shock; her white-blonde hair thick about her head; the unspoiled youthfulness of her body, despite the battering it had received from the resuscitation. He took the ID card from the ambulance technician's hand and looked at it; and he could hardly believe what he saw. "This woman," he said. "This _heart case_. She's less than twenty years old..."

An hour later Sophie Douglas, semi-conscious but stabilised, had been examined by the medical resident and transferred to CCU. The most junior of the nurses had been left, as usual, to tidy up; and nothing else was happening. Thor, along with Shirley Baxter, wandered to the staff room, looking for something to eat. 

"I hate that sort of thing," the nurse said, "When it happens to kids."

"Yes, but she should be OK. I don't think I have ever seen such an easy resuscitation. It was like something out of a textbook."

"I suppose. That's fine until you contemplate being a cardiac cripple at nineteen."

"Mm. I think I'll go up and see her. At the end of the shift. I like to keep in touch." Thor was mildly surprised at his own words; somehow, the white lie had come so easily to him. He had never thought it was a good idea to check up on patients when working in an ER. It could look like interference in the work of the receiving medical team. But he would go up. For some reason, he felt a need to see Sophie Douglas when she was fully conscious; and he had learned, from long experience, that when he had a feeling of this kind it was as well to follow its direction.

They sat and drank coffee for a few minutes. Then Shirley Baxter noticed something. She looked around to ensure they were alone in the room, then she said, "Don? Where's your case? You left..._it_ in there, didn't you?"

"I must have left it in your office. I'll go put it back in my locker."

"You should be more careful with that, Don. I mean...What if one of the orderlies got hold of it?"

"It wouldn't matter." Thor stood and moved toward the door. "It wouldn't do them any good," he said, more than a little sadly. "It is..._mine_, you know."

  


At the end of the shift Thor was as good as his word. Before departing for Tony's apartment, he took the elevator up two floors to the coronary care unit, to visit Sophie Douglas. 

The charge nurse showed him into a single cubicle. The girl who lay in the bed was so pale that her face might have been a charcoal sketch on the white pillow. Thor took in the high cheekbones, the jawline which was just a little too square and too strong for femininity, the long straight nose, the extraordinary pale hair. She was very beautiful still, despite the stigmata of sickness upon her face and the dark circles which surrounded her closed eyes. Moved by pity, he crossed to the bed and stood beside her. He saw that his timing had been perfect. As he looked down on her Sophie moved her head a little, opened her eyes and gazed at him.

Her eyes were blue-grey, like the sky in a summer storm. Thor could not understand their expression, nor the gasp which the girl gave as she focussed upon him: there was, just for a moment, fear there; and something which might have been recognition. But before he could speak, she changed; suddenly there was only blankness, followed by puzzlement.

"Who are you?" Sophie asked. "And...I don't know where I am. Please tell me what's happening...?"

"It's all right, Sophie. You've been taken ill. You're in hospital. I'm one of the doctors. You're going to be okay."

"Hospital...doctor...Ah. I see." Sophie lifted a hand, rubbed her chest above the neckline of her hospital nightgown. "I feel as though a truck's parked on me," she said. "Bruised. Sore deep inside. Has someone been pounding my chest or something?"

"Yes. But as I said, you're over the worst and you're going to be all right."

Sophie was silent for a moment. Thor was ashamed of his words almost as soon as he had said them; this girl was evidently no fool and she would be well within her rights if she thought he was patronising her. But when she spoke again, it was not to deliver a rebuke. "I remember you, don't I?" she asked.

"You do?"

"Yes, I think so...It's coming back now. There was a pain. I felt weak and fell over. Then the ambulance came. They picked me up and gave me some stuff, painkiller stuff. Then I passed out, just as we were getting to the hospital. I don't remember much else until I woke up here. But...You were there, weren't you? Or at least, I think it was you."

"When, Sophie? I'm Don, by the way. Don Blake."

"Well, doctor...Don. I think it was when we came into the hospital, just at the entrance. That's strange, though, because I was right out then, wasn't I?"

"You seemed to be, yes..."

"I'm sure I saw you. At least, as I said, I think it was you. You were shining. And your clothing...your hair...there was something different. You were shining, glowing...there was such power in you, so bright. I thought that you must have come to save me, that I had to be all right because your power would heal me...I'm talking rubbish, aren't I?"

"I don't know," Thor said slowly, more astonished than he dared admit. He felt a chill. He had been right to come; though this revelation, that the girl had, in the midst of a cardiac arrest, had a vision of his true self, was far more baffling than enlightening. "I have heard of people seeing strange things in those circumstances. It doesn't mean you're crazy; such experiences are actually quite common. You're right in one way. I was there. But I'm...just a doctor. As you can see."

"Yes...of course..." Sophie smiled faintly. "Look, I'm tired now. Need to sleep. Come back some other time, eh?"

The girl's eyes closed. As soon as he was sure she was asleep, Thor left the room. 

  


At about the time Thor went home that morning a woman in early middle age sat at a table in a coffee bar at New York's Kennedy Airport. She was small and slim, with long red hair which, as yet, showed only a little grey; though more grey showed in the six inches of hair toward the roots than was visible on the rest of her head. The hair was left unstyled, hanging loose down her back almost to her waist. She wore no make-up; her complexion was the redhead's freckled pink and white; her face was small and heart-shaped with a short, uptilted nose; her eyes were green. She wore faded blue denims, a purple T-shirt and a black cotton blouson jacket; casual to the point of scruffiness, her clothes were all noticeably at least a size too large. A casual observer might have thought her quite attractive, though uncared-for; an artist or photographer, one accustomed to careful observation, might have noticed that in reality, her face held a once outstanding beauty behind prison bars of frown and worry-lines. Such a one might also have noticed the rigidity with which she held herself; the fine tremor of her small-boned hands. 

As she drank her coffee the woman looked through a Filofax and contemplated addresses.

"I think it will have to be Katrina," she muttered to herself. That would be best. Debbie Maxwell, née Solomon, was really the one she was closest to of those friends of hers who lived in Britain, but Debbie had three children, an unemployed husband and no money. It was not likely that she would be able to stay there for long without causing major problems for the household. Katrina, Lady de Betancourt, was legally separated from her adulterous husband. She had also received a large financial settlement in return for her agreement to wait for the required time to pass for the divorce to be granted on grounds of separation; her husband would have done almost anything to avoid scandal in the Press. She had never had to work since her marriage and instead passed her time in the socialite's round of parties and charity functions to which her estranged husband's name still gave her admittance. Katrina would have time, room and money to spare; enough to give a friend house-room until she had worked long enough to draw salary and find her own place. She would at the very least take up the challenge of the five-year-old standing invitation; and if by chance she turned out to be unwelcome, her savings would probably allow her to stay in some hotel long enough to get her professional life in order. In her pocketbook, with her professional ID and her letter confirming her registration with the ENB, was $5000 in travelers' checks: all the money she possessed in the world.

"I hope this Westminster City Hospital isn't too utterly Victorian," she muttered. A man approaching the table with a coffee-cup, apparently in search of a seat and possibly of the company of a lone woman, realised that his prospective table-companion was talking to herself. He rapidly moved away. 

The woman noticed; she followed his retreating back with a grin of triumph. "We aren't all desperate," she muttered; "Why don't you learn that?"

One more time the woman checked her hand-baggage: fresh clothing, toothbrush, sweets and a trashy novel in the grip; ID and money in the purse; passport with worker's visa in her pocket. All correct, as it had been on the previous half-dozen occasions. Almost involuntarily she reached inside the purse again and felt the outline of the slim book or folder which lay concealed within the bag's inner zipped compartment. As she did so often, she decided to look at it; and, as always, she changed her mind. With a faint grimace she shut the bag and put it down, rather too forcefully, on the floor between her feet.

There were signs about this woman that despite her scruffy clothing and her uncared-for looks she had once been prosperous; or at least, more prosperous than she was now. The grip which formed part of her hand baggage was by Luis Vuitton, in leather with a monogram. As she looked once again at her passport a trained observer, one who was sufficiently silent and invisible to spy over her shoulder, might have noticed other peculiarities. There were two initials in the monogram. Once there had been a third - perhaps, from the shape of the area of less-faded leather, a 'K.' - but this had been forcibly removed, leaving a small torn area which nobody had troubled to repair. And while the woman's passport, along with all her other personal papers, was in the name of Jane St. Clair, the remaining initials on the grip read 'J. F.'. 

  


  


  



	2. The Last Thor Story 2

2.

  


  


"I went to see her again before I came home, Tony. There is something disturbing about that girl."

"The one with the heart attack? You told me. That's the third time in ten days, you know...I remember you getting very involved with some of your patients, once upon a time. Sure it's not just her age or something...Sure you don't just feel sorry for her?"

"No, I'm not sure. I felt differently a week ago. But now..."

As they had done most mornings since Thor had started his job, the two men were breakfasting together before Tony left for his office and Thor attempted to get some sleep. This had quickly become a comforting morning ritual for both of them; the one needing to unwind, to put the traumas of the night behind him; the other benefitting simply from having someone who was not an employee to talk to. Tony poured coffee and took another slice of toast. "Have some more."

"In a moment. Sophie Douglas is a puzzle in several ways. Medically she is very unusual; a woman of that age. She's had a big M.I., as I told you. The EKGs and blood tests all confirmed it. She had angios today - you know, don't you?"

Tony Stark nodded. As Thor well knew, the industrialist had good reason to be familiar with all manner of cardiac investigations. A transplant recipient, he still had to return to hospital every few months to be checked over for signs of rejection. He had had more cardiac catheterisations than most people had had holidays.

"They show inoperable, diffuse coronary artery disease. It's just the worst result one could obtain. We have nothing to offer her immediately save medication. I guess they'll put her on the transplant list, but the gods know how long she'll have to wait..."

"How is she generally?"

"Much better. Her colour, her looks have all returned. Superficially she seems very well. And for one so young, she seems very strong, very mature. She will need all those qualities in the days to come..."

"Did she say anything more about her NDE?"

"No. Last time I tried to turn the conversation to that she seemed uncomfortable; so I doubt I'll hear any more. She was telling me about her plans. She's decided to go to Europe for a holiday, whether or not the physicians think it's a good idea. She's in despair, Tony. Convinced she is going to die; so she wants to fulfil her dreams. All I could do was listen."

"Poor kid...So what do you think?"

"What can I think...? The only thing I can be certain of is that Sophie had a powerful near-death experience. The 'shining figure' is a common element of that experience and I am the only member of the resuscitation team that she has seen since. The fact that she related that figure to me could be just a coincidence."

"You don't believe that, do you, old friend?"

"A week ago I did not believe it. Now I am not so certain. I thought...No. I don't know what I thought."

There was a brief silence. "And what about Ms. Baxter?" Tony said.

"She's one of the good guys, Tony. I think I'm glad she knows."

"You really didn't expect that, did you?" Tony grinned. "After all this time."

"I'd got used to being anonymous. After all, it's a long time since I was so famous they invited me to appear on _Sesame Street_..."

"Ha!"

Thor poured himself another cup of coffee and drained it in one draught. "I must get some rest now, Tony. I will see you this evening."

"See you."

In Tony Stark's spare bedroom, Thor lay sleepless contemplating his progress. His professional confidence was returning, which was good. The high technology of the ER no longer baffled him; none of his practical skills had deserted him; the nurses no longer gave him pitying looks. The interns respected him and the senior medical staff trusted him. Things were coming together. Yet he was unsatisfied. The spiritual crisis, if that was what it was, which had provoked his return to America, showed no sign of resolution. For all he had felt at the time it was hard to see what Sophie Douglas could possibly have to do with it.

Perhaps Tony was right; perhaps it was all in his mind. He had been so certain; certain enough to throw away something which had begun to feel like his vocation. Yet he could have been wrong. Looking back on it now, Thor wanted to laugh. The very idea that someone here, now, in New York, might have called upon him, _prayed to him_ like that...It was ridiculous.

Eventually he slept; but his sleep was fitful. Visions of his dead father, of the friends he could not save, tormented him. Sif reached out her hand to him, but before he could grasp it she faded from his sight, her death-cry echoing in his ears. 

  


The watcher at the Flame could not spend all his time observing events on Earth, but his magicks enabled him to recall times past to his sight, just as they had enabled him to control the scrying of his apprentice. He watched and was pleased. Things had developed as he had anticipated. Soon it would be time. There were just a few details which needed his attention. 

Hours later, spells at the ready, the sorcerer reviewed his preparations in his mind. He found no flaw. All possibilities, even those which might arise due to the ridiculous and stifling addiction to bureaucracy which all Earth-dwellers suffered from, had been covered. Standing, eyes closed, in communion with the dark powers from whom in blood and fire he had purchased his skills, he unloosed his magicks.

This done, the sorcerer laughed; a sound which had even his servants, dark as himself, clutching their cold throats in horror. 

Revenge was, indeed, a dish best served cold.

  


In the heart of a distant monastery a woman dressed in green floated in a position of meditation several feet above the floor of her cell. She maintained her position not through magical means nor, more mundanely, due to the low level of gravity on the little world of Titan - it had few luxuries, but the monastery did possess artificial gravity generators; in the priestess's quarters they were currently set on maximum - but rather through the sheer force of her mind and will. A telekinetic by training rather than through natural gift, she found the discipline needed to counteract a gravitational force of 6G refreshing to her mental powers. The pain which was also involved preserved her from becoming too enmeshed in the webs of her own mind.

Her meditations were almost as painful to her as her efforts to remain airborne. Over the many years of penance she had been made by her superiors to confront every one of her weaknesses: weaknesses whose existence she would formerly have refused to acknowledge. That they were real had been brought home to her in the most direct and hurtful manner imaginable. She had lost friends, family and all semblance of a normal life to her former self-obsession, to her almost irresistible urge to self-aggrandisement. She had become a killer and a tormentor; to use a human vernacular expression, a 'control freak'. Since her rehabilitation she had forced herself to confront her most painful memories: herself claiming divinity; herself as murderer (no, worse than that, _parricide_); even as rapist. She sifted the memories through the fingers of her mind, taking, she hoped, the appropriate lessons from them; striving to acknowledge both their reality, and the fact that all that was past and she had only the future to face.

She wished sincerely to return to her home planet, she thought; to take up the threads of a life she no longer knew. Thus she might salvage something from the chaos of pride and wilfulness that had been all her life until a few years before.

The woman - who still used the name Moondragon, although the reason for that name was lost to her along with everything else - meditated; and as she meditated she was drawn downward, as she had been on so many previous occasions, toward the great unresolved question of her life and the absence in her psyche which inspired it. A woman of formidable mental powers and extraordinary discipline, Moondragon had maintained psychic links with many people in the past. Some she had, in the way of her former evil nature, forced upon others. Some had been voluntary on both sides. Some had even been entered into out of love. She had broken all of the first category and most of the others herself, in expiation of her sin or in her inability to imagine that anyone might still want to know her in that way. But only once had she had such a link broken_ for_ her, by some power from outside; and she understood neither the reason for this rupture nor the means. Often over the years she had been impelled to seek that one person to whom she longed to be linked; to whom she had been linked, by a bond composed, unlike so many others, of real love, until that unsought breakage. Every time she failed and was left both puzzled and, yet again, bereft. It was as though the Other had died; but Moondragon could understand neither how this was possible, nor how it could have happened without her unequivocal awareness.

The compulsion was stronger than ever this time. Once again her mind reached out. The Other should be there...there! Moondragon was prepared now for her many-times-repeated discovery that instead of the warmth she sought the mental space was empty and cold. This time she found, to her utter astonishment, that she was wrong. 

The link was alive under her probing mind; more alive than it had seemed even in the years before the breach; more solid, more real. She lived; more, she was on Earth! Moondragon swayed, her trance threatened by pure amazement. She could not even begin to imagine how this might have happened.

Without probing further, without attempting to learn more, Moondragon released herself from meditation and leaped to her feet. She headed for the Father Superior's office, praying that she would at last be allowed the privilege of travel. She hoped that she would be in time; then she realised that she did not know why time seemed so important. But she did not change her mind. She knew - and this was all that mattered - that there was no time to be lost.

  


On the last morning of his locum job Thor said goodbye to Shirley Baxter and promised to keep in touch. There was no-one else. Sophie Douglas had been discharged almost a week before, presumably to take her 'last holiday'; Thor was still disturbed that he had been able to do so little to help her. He left the hospital and walked to a back alley empty of people. There, he did something he had refrained from doing throughout his three weeks of employment. He extracted his hammer from his briefcase, whirled it about his head and took off, heading for Manhattan. 

Moments later, traffic congestion and crowded subways all bypassed, he landed in another alley within easy walking distance of Tony Stark's apartment block. He ran a hand over his hair and stowed his hammer in its case, so that he should not alarm his host's wealthy neighbours. 

Tony had already left for work. For an hour Thor did various household chores. This was one means he did have of repaying Tony without causing the subject to become an embarrassment. He listened to two messages on the telephone answering machine, both from his medical staff agency. He had already decided which job to accept and he would have to call them back. He dumped the garbage down the chute; he placed the dishes left over from the previous night's meal in the dishwasher. Then he retrieved the used clothing and half-read books from beside his bed, vacuumed the carpets and washed the kitchen floor.

Thor had become accustomed to housework while on board ship and on the missions; just as he had become accustomed to bad food, arrogant sea-captains, over-enthusiastic evangelists and self-important village headmen. He was aware now as he had been then that Sif, his once-betrothed, would never have allowed him to descend to this. She, ever the aristocrat, would not have scrupled to persuade - or coerce - Tony into employing domestic servants; something which he, despite his wealth, never had done and would never voluntarily do. She would never have permitted some people to speak to him as they had done without picking a fight. Her possible reaction to the evangelists defied imagination. Sif...

Thor's memory, not for the first time, betrayed him. The scene was suddenly, vividly present to his mind: the attack of the demons on Avengers' Mansion; the moment he had realised that this meant a new assault on Asgard; the discovery that his father's own magicks still kept him from setting foot on Bifrost. The way that invisible wall had dissolved at the moment of Odin's death. The way he had arrived, too late, upon the battlefield. Thor smelled again the stench of blood that choked him as he reached that place at last; he saw the corpses that lay among the stones as far as the eye could see; he felt on his face the wind that blew hot with ash from the burning towns. Family and friends, proud immortals of the Golden Realm, his comrades for so many thousand years: he had found them all there, dead in the dirt. 

And he remembered how, finally, he had discovered _her_. Sif lay there among the rest, her headdress awry, her armour drenched in blood, her spine severed and her heart pierced through. She was not quite dead. She knew him even in her pain. She cried out...his name, that was all. Her hand clutched at his own for a moment and then it grew still; and god or no, physician or no, he had known at once that he could not help her.

The apartment came back into focus. Thor found himself on his knees, his face buried in the seat of one of Tony's leather armchairs, his hands shielding his head as if from a blow. He heard his own cry as if from another's throat. It had not been possible even to take revenge. The demons had done their work and gone. Yet he had done what he could, he told himself. He had saved all those who could be saved. He shook his head as he recalled the grim work of the time that followed: the burnings and the burials; and, before any of this, the things he had had to do to preserve the lives of the few survivors. He had gone as a warrior to the aid of his homeland, yet only as a doctor had he been of any help at all. There was a terrible and entirely fitting irony in this.

Thor had suffered such attacks before.There was, there always had been, only one thing he could do when this happened. The memories would always be there; he could change nothing; but he could force his mind away from them. With an effort of will he compelled himself to rise and continue with his self-imposed tasks.

After half an hour or so he decided it was time for some coffee. As he set up the filter machine he realised suddenly how quiet the apartment was; so quiet that he began to imagine he could hear the neighbours downstairs talking ("And how they would talk, if they could see in here..."), or the traffic in the street below. Too quiet. While the drink brewed he switched on the television to a public-service channel, at low volume, just for background noise. 

It was less than fifteen minutes later, just as Thor was deciding that he had done enough and perhaps he should try to sleep, that something said by a television announcer caught his attention in the same way in which one's own name, however softly spoken, will always be heard. 

"....sea serpent. We go there now for a word from our reporter at the scene, Trish McCoy. Trish?"

Thor turned and stared, incredulous, at the television.

"This is Trish McCoy, in Docklands. Incredible as it may seem, the reports are true!..."

On the screen a dark-haired woman flinched aside as a panic-stricken member of the public ran past her; then, behind the reporter's head, an appalling sight came into view. Swimming up the centre of the River Thames in London, glowing in the afternoon light, was a great dragon-creature: its head fifty feet above the water; its neck scaled with malachite and gold; its eyes two red fires. Trish McCoy, centre shot again, looked over her shoulder nervously and continued. 

"...Here is the incredible sight which Londoners near the River hoped never to see. We have heard reports of such monsters from other parts of the world; sometimes they have even been captured on film; but never has one come so close in shore; never has one presented such an immediate threat to the population of a major city. So far it has made no hostile moves, but we are hearing that the Air Force has been scrambled. Londoners can only wait..."

Thor, fascinated, had forgotten all about sleep. He stared at the television screen in disbelief, his mouth open. He took his hammer from the case which lay on the floor near his feet and clutched it to him, drawing reassurance from the power within. He murmured to himself, or perhaps to the hammer, _What can this_...!

The television reporter simultaneously paused in amazement, between one word and the next. Evidently responding to signals from the OB crew, she turned, gazed at the Thames and gasped. When she looked back at the camera it was to report, stunned, that which most viewers had already observed: that between one word and the next the monster had vanished. 

"I have heard enough," Thor muttered. "There was no danger to life that I could see; no hostile act; yet the appearance of such a beast, in such a place, stinks of fell magic. More: the very form taken by the beast stinks of fell _Asgardian_ magic...To London, then. Perhaps it is time that Donald Blake paid that visit to his old friend Malcolm Ross, which he promised more than two years ago that he would make."

Swiftly he gathered together a change of clothing and 'Donald Blake's' perfectly genuine (though dubiously legal) American passport and personal papers. His mode of travel would dispense with all formalities involving customs and visas. The documents and his SHIELD contacts would have to serve if any officer of the law became too curious about his unofficial immigration status in Britain. Then he crossed to the telephone to make two brief calls.

"...that locum OB-GYN residency at Mater Misericordiae you found me...No, I'm sorry, not next week either...Look, it's a personal emergency. Yes, personal! Yes, yes, I do want to continue on your books. No, not for at least a week. I'll be in touch when I return. Thank you."

"Tony? Sorry to disturb you at work. Something has come up that I need to investigate. I'll let you know when I'm back. Thanks for everything..."

It took Thor only moments to realise that there was no-one else he needed to contact. He had been so long away...He changed his clothes: black leather jeans, white T-shirt, black sleeveless jacket, the nearest New York's department stores had been able to provide to a fighting costume. He loosed his hair and contemplated the effect, which was that of an ageing heavy metal singer. He tied the hair back again. A few minutes later he stood on the narrow balcony outside his bedroom, hammer in hand, briefcase tied to his belt. A throw, a grasp at its carrying-thong, and he was flying on the back of the winds that were part of his nature, heading eastward fast as thought.

  


As Thor crossed the Atlantic Ocean, Sophie Douglas lay exhausted in the bedroom her aunt had given her in her Barbican flat. In London it was six p.m., just after sunset. Sophie's aunt was wealthy; her flat was the penthouse of a six-storey block; and from the window the view over London would have been spectacular, had Sophie been in any mood for admiring beauty. 

"I did it," she murmured to herself. "I really did it. It's better every time I try. Oh, that I only had the time...It's not fair! Why did it have to happen to me? I never did anything wrong..." She turned on her side away from the window and sobbed, helplessly. The sea crossing to Britain (for Sophie had found out the hard way that so soon after a heart attack no airline would touch her) had been wonderful; she had spent much of the time on deck amid the elements which, even in their wildest moods, seemed like familiar friends in comparison with the majority of normal humans. Hardly daring at first, in case she should over-tax herself, she had checked to make certain that nothing in her illness and above all in the cardiac arrest and resuscitation she had experienced had impaired her powers; and she had found that they were, if anything, stronger than ever. The waiter, for instance, had been so good that he had been able to fetch her food and drink for two days without being challenged, though maintaining a _gestalt_ for so long was very tiring, even with minimal control.

She had nothing to lose, she thought. What had the doctors said? _If _she took the cholesterol-reducing pills and the aspirin and the beta-blockers and watched her diet and didn't smoke and avoided stress and of course if she was lucky, she _might_ live for another twenty, thirty, forty years without having another attack. Familial hypercholesterolaemia; unfortunate, but these days most people are screened. Weren't her parents...?

And all Sophie could say to that was that her parents had never told her about it. As far as her memories went back she couldn't recall anything of the sort. And the doctors had said that just perhaps, she had a new mutation of the gene responsible and it wasn't, after all, in her family. It had taken all her self-control to refrain from asking whether one new mutation was not enough. She had refused the hospital's offer of a free genotyping, just in case the _other_ was found; while human-mutant relations had improved following the exposure and impeachment of President Creed, it would not do to alert any authorities, even those of the health professions.

Her aunt hadn't been able to shed any light on the situation. Hester, her mother's sister, older by twenty years than the deceased Ruth, had neither seen nor spoken to any other family members since she left for Britain and her unfortunate marriage, so she knew nothing. She did not have the condition herself; which tended to bear out what the doctors had said. At least she had been welcoming and sympathetic, despite the ancient family rift; she had been willing to acknowledge that her niece, her last remaining blood-relative in the world as far as she knew, had nothing to do with the bad old times. A long holiday with no worries: that was what she offered and what Sophie had at first thought that she needed. It had taken her less than a week to realise that she needed much, much more. 

She rolled onto her back, eyes still red but weeping over. "I must show them," she muttered. "I'll show the world. If I'm going to die, at least everybody will have heard of me before it's over. I'll show them. I'll show them who is _really_ the best. X-men, Avengers, I don't care who. Just so long as they know they've met me."

Sophie climbed off the bed and switched on the light over her dressing-table. Sitting before the mirror, she contemplated the changes the past few weeks had wrought in her appearance. Her hair hadn't turned grey overnight; but that was the best that could be said. She had lost a stone in weight and while this suited her body, which now looked firm and muscular and deceptively strong, her face was far too thin. It bore new lines of worry and pain across the brow and down each cheek from nostril to corner of mouth, making her appear several years older in a matter of less than a month. She picked up her favourite brush and began to tidy her hair. At least that was the same. It was white-blonde and thick, falling in soft waves to just below her shoulder-blades. It was (and she knew it) quite spectacularly beautiful. Over her forehead it was cut into a fringe which just brushed her eyebrows; strangely, these eyebrows were so dark that they were almost black, as were her eyelashes. Sophie was glad of this. It gave what might otherwise have been a pale and insipid face strength and definition, without any need for make-up. 

She applied a touch of brownish-pink lipstick; that was all. She was going to go out. She had made her mind up; and there was no point in delay. She still could not think what had given her the idea, but it was a magnificent idea. The sooner she started the better. 

Just before she left, she could not resist the temptation of another test run. Sophie Douglas, the mutant_ Gestalt_ as she named herself, _thought_ - and her thoughts appeared. One to either side of her, reflected as she was in the dressing-table mirror, Captain America and Spiderman stood. They felt, even smelled authentic, like male human beings. They breathed. Sophie could feel their body-warmth through their uniforms. Maintaining rigid control, she turned and asked them to say who they were and to show her their powers. Obligingly, Captain America vaulted across the room in a display of acrobatic agility, though he explained that he could not demonstrate the use of his shield without wrecking the apartment. 

The marvellous thing about this, Sophie thought, was that had she given her permission, or exercised appropriate control, the apartment_ would_ have been wrecked. 

Meanwhile, Spiderman climbed a wall and crossed the ceiling upside-down, on hands and feet. Sophie dismissed them rather than reduce her control as far as she could and let them go; although it might have been entertaining to observe their effects on the neighbourhood, she really had something more public in mind and she could not afford the distraction it would cost to maintain them. With the release of the mutant's control the two veteran superheroes vanished. 

"Excellent," Sophie muttered. She knew that if either of these beings had been captured and examined (not that anything like that could happen, since she would simply abandon any captured _gestalt _and therefore it would cease to exist), they would have appeared quite normal, with normal human vital organs. This despite the fact that she knew no anatomy and could not even say whether the stomach was on the left or the right of the body. Each new _gestalt_ was just that: a whole, created in all its parts just by her thinking of the item or being she wanted to summon. As ever, Spiderman had all his spider-powers, even though she had no idea how these worked. She suspected that this would continue to be true, however powerful the _gestalt_ which she attempted to create. If her power had limits other than her need to maintain a small degree of concentration, she had yet to find them.

Looking forward to her evening's entertainment, Sophie put on an overcoat and left the apartment. Her aunt merely wished her a good evening. If Hester had one really excellent quality, it was her lack of curiosity. Sophie went to Barbican underground station and caught a train, heading for Westminster. 

  


Over London at last, Thor circled in the dusk, looking for an inconspicuous place to land. It was shortly after seven p.m. on a mild night at the end of March; far warmer than it was at this time of year in New York. It was beautiful weather for walking peaceably in a park or beside a river, two mortal pursuits which he had always enjoyed. This time, though, the peace seemed likely to be deceptive. He would have had no objection to a public entrance in normal times; but if there was evil magic abroad - assuming that his intuition had not deceived him yet again - he thought that the longer he could conceal his presence the better. 

He circled over the centre of London, over the river and the shopping streets and the Houses of Parliament. All appeared quiet. Evil might be abroad, but there was nothing to see. Thor marked out a landing site in a deserted street south of the Thames and headed for it, but before he could reach his goal a sight utterly strange, yet bearing no resemblance to the work of an evil power of Asgard, caught his eye. 

Right below him, not half a mile from the Palace of Westminster, seat of Parliament itself, a crowd had gathered. The people had come to see not some dignitary nor some member of the Royal Family but a fat, jolly-looking old man in a Santa Claus outfit who was, for some reason known only to himself, performing high-wire acrobatics on a cable strung in unlikely fashion across the width of Pall Mall. 

Thor immediately revised his plans. Unconnected as it seemed to be to the dragon, this event was surely strange enough to merit investigation. Despite its proximity to the seat of government there was a back-street nearby which no-one guarded and in which no human figure could be seen. He landed there and stowed away his hammer. Seconds later a tall, well-muscled individual in casual clothes who carried a briefcase and, defying fashion, sported a ponytail, emerged from the darkness off Pall Mall and moved toward the disturbance; but even as he moved he realised that for 'Santa Claus' at least he had come too late. 

The crowd groaned and gasped as the man swayed, waved his arms despairingly in the air, then plummeted almost fifty feet to the ground. There, he lay still. Thor, approaching, broke into a run. As the crowd grew thicker in front of him and the policemen started to close in he heard himself demand, in the words of his nightmare, that they let him through, because he was a doctor. 

At the far edge of the crowd Sophie Douglas frowned in annoyance. She should have kept closer control, she thought; now she would only get the ambulance and the police; the _gestalt_'s fall had not given the Press time to arrive. And that meddling doctor (it irritated her enormously, for reasons she could not have expressed, to discover that there was a doctor in the crowd) was even succeeding, from the little she could see past the press of bodies, in persuading the crowd to move back. The police too were forming a cordon, moving people on. She was losing her audience. It might be best to wait, to cause the _gestalt_ to vanish from the local emergency room. By then, hopefully, the Press would have picked up the story and would be ready to sensationalise whatever occurred.

Thor secured his patient's airway. He gave the name 'Dr. Don Blake', in his best Yankee accent, to a policeman who seemed to be in the process of summoning help, secure in the knowledge that in this land his odd appearance would be sufficiently explained by the fact of his being American. He said nothing to the officer, but privately he knew that this case had to be hopeless. The fat man, his unseasonable costume pathetically new and clean, had landed on his head; and his red and white cap had not saved him. Both his pupils were fixed and dilated; he was barely breathing. Thor could do nothing but lift his jaw, prevent him from moving in case of spinal injury, and hope that help came quickly. 

The man's face was familiar, as was his size and, before the fall, his bearing. He was very like Volstagg, the cowardly old Asgardian who had been Thor's friend for so many years. The moustache, the reddish hair, the girth: all were just the same. But of course it could not be Volstagg. Along with most of the warriors of the Golden Realm the fat one had been dead for years. It had given Thor some of the most intense grief he had ever known to think of that cheerful, simple family man as a denizen of Hel.

Within five minutes an ambulance and paramedics arrived. The man was taken away with Thor riding in attendance beside his patient. They were taken to the nearby Westminster City Hospital. In the casualty department Thor found himself brushed aside once he had given his report of the incident; the casualty team took over the patient's care and made it plain that they did not require the assistance of American bikers, medically qualified or otherwise. Thor was wandering away from the resuscitation area, resigned to the idea that he would never hear anything more about this strange affair, when he was startled to hear a voice calling his name; or one of his names. 

"Don! Donald Blake, as I live. It is you, isn't it?"

Thor turned, puzzled. Approaching along the corridor was a tall middle-aged man. He had pale brown skin and thinning hair which was mostly grey, though it was still possible to tell that once upon a time it had been bright red. He spoke with a Scots accent which was fainter than Thor remembered. This and his appearance made him an unforgettable figure. Thor grinned broadly and moved toward him. Somehow, it had entirely slipped his mind that Malcolm Ross was one of the orthopaedic consultants at Westminster City Hospital.

They had met at a conference several years before on 'bush' medicine and the training of traditional healers; one of the few such events Thor had attended since his disappearance'. Malcolm had never known the 'original' Blake save as a name in medical journals; he therefore assumed that this famous, or notorious, doctor - the first man to publish a full account of the genetic structure and physiology of an alien species, his 'Asgardians' - had always resembled a pro wrestler, right down to the outrageous clothing and eccentric hairstyle. Malcolm was not a small man himself; he had played Rugby Union for Scotland in his younger days; but he still recalled an unwise (and slightly tipsy) arm-wrestling match between the two of them as one of his least glorious sporting moments. "Still pumping that iron, I see! And you dinna' look a day older, you lucky swine." Malcolm reached out and shook Thor's hand.

"Ah, yes....Well, it's strange how things...Malcolm, I was on my way to look you up. Really! Then I happened on this strange incident in the street...Came in with the casualty. Have you heard about it?"

"No' much. I'm just a carpenter; the neurosurgeons wouldn' trust me near one o' their 'heads'. Anyway, I'm no' on call; believe it or not, I've just finished ma _afternoon_ operating list! I was on ma way out. And you look like a spare part yourself...How about coffee, or somethin' stronger?"

"Great idea." 

The two doctors walked away from the casualty department toward the senior medical staff lounge, already talking about old times. They were long gone from the department when it happened. Suddenly, as the neurosurgeons were debating the results of a CT scan which seemed to show no abnormality in the construct's brain, the _gestalt_ vanished to that place where all Sophie's _gestalten_ went when she dismissed them. Five nurses and six doctors of differing specialities were watching at the time, along with two policemen who had been ordered to record any possible last words from this bizarre patient. Without even discussing the matter, somehow all the witnesses reached a consensus that no purpose would be served by reporting the incident and thus drawing attention to what the Press were bound to call an outbreak of mass hysteria; but they shortly found these intentions stymied by the army of reporters which already beseiged the Casualty entrance. There had been a few too many strange appearances and disappearances in London over the past few days for this one to be ignored.

In the medical staff lounge Malcolm Ross and Thor sat for nearly two hours, reminiscing. 

"How's your mother? Still in Columbo?"

"Aye. I canna' persuade her tae move back. When Dad died she just wanted to go home. It's dangerous. They had another big suicide bomb just last week. I hate the thought of her livin' there. But she willna' move."

"Give her my regards when you call her, won't you? I have good memories of our visit."

"Aye, I will that. She liked you, too. You know what she said? 'Such a polite boy, even if he is frit' o' the barber.' I dinna' know how old she thought you were! But then, I'm still her babby too..." Malcolm grinned. He was at least eighteen inches taller than his mother.

"I can just imagine her saying that..." One thing Thor knew he would never do, even if she asked him outright, was tell Mrs. Ross the truth about his age. She was over seventy. The shock would probably kill her.

Conversation turned inevitably to 'shop'. Malcolm was somewhat worried by his friend's lack of clinical commitment. After so long out in the sticks, surely he needed to get his career back on track.

"You were a well-regarded general surgeon before you starrted publishin' papers about aliens! Y'know, some day I would really like tae hear how those people came to be your patients..." 

Thor ignored the second remark. He could only explain how he had come to operate on the Valkyrie Krista, and later on Sif herself, if he told Malcolm everything. Nor would it be any less problematic to admit that one of the DNA samples he had used in his researches had been his own... "I no longer see surgery as the way forward for me. So much of it is done endoscopically these days. I don't have any experience of that method. I would need complete re-training."

"You could always take up orrthopaedics! You canna' put in a hip prosthesis through a keyhole incision..."

"I suppose not..." 

Both men had drunk several pints of beer, though Malcolm was the only one who appeared at all tipsy. While quite capable of getting drunk, Thor knew that it would take far more than four pints of English ale to have that effect on him. 

"You can still drink like a fish and stay upright, can't you?"

"Mm..."

"I've had enough, Don. I'm off home. You havenae anywhere ta' stay, have you?"

Thor admitted that no, he hadn't.

"I know you. There's more going on than you'll admit. Dinna' worry; I won't demand tae know why you're in London after nine p.m. with nowhere ta' stay and nae luggage but a briefcase. I remember those old stories about the Avengers and 'government business' and so on; I dinna' _want _tae know! But you're welcome tae crash at my place if you want tae."

"Thanks. The only trouble is that I may have to leave suddenly..."

"I can just imagine. Dinna' worry, Don. I'll geve you a spare key. Just leave it behind when you know you won't be back and I'll look forward to a letter or a call. It's good just tae see you, you know?"

"Thanks again."

Shortly afterward, the two doctors left. Malcolm hailed a cab outside the hospital and five minutes later they reached the prestigious mansion block which housed his large flat. They arrived just in time for the ten p.m. television news. Malcolm switched on the TV almost automatically, as if it was something he did as a matter of course every time he came in the door of his home; then he went to make coffee, leaving his guest to watch the news broadcast.

The tightrope walker did not only make the news; his disaster and the way he had vanished was the third item to be mentioned, after the troubles in Tibet and a gruesome murder case. Thor considered that this was to give the affair too much prominence, until he heard something of the context. Not only had there been the Thames sea-serpent just a few hours earlier, but the previous day several MPs had observed a giant frog proceeding on its hind legs over Westminster Bridge. That too had vanished, but it could have been no hallucination, alcohol-induced or otherwise, since a BBC OB unit which had happened to be in the neighbourhood had captured part of the event on camera. Then there had been the pair of four-foot-high goats which had made such a mess of the flowerbeds in Kew Gardens...These things just had to be linked: impossible appearances, followed by sudden disappearances; all in extremely public places; all either filmed or reported on by numerous reliable witnesses. 

Even the tightrope-walker had been filmed, despite the absence of any television news team. Nowadays, it was almost inevitable that in a large crowd there would be somebody with a cam-corder. The shaky footage - captioned 'Amateur Video', in case anyone should not be able to work that out - showed the man on the tightrope, then the man on a stretcher being loaded into the ambulance (the fall itself, Thor decided, most likely had been filmed as well, but the news team had made the decision to edit it out). Thor even appeared himself for a moment and was described by the news-reader as 'an American doctor in the crowd'. The shot was shaky and the angle, incorporating silhouettes of several heads, very awkward; but he was clearly identifiable as 'Blake'. 

"There is magic afoot here," Thor muttered to himself, "Though some of it seems whimsical, harmless...like some kind of strange publicity stunt..." 

The more he thought about it, the more plausible this idea seemed; but he was unable to imagine just who might want this kind of publicity - particularly since they had not yet shown themselves - nor why. It was also possible that the pattern he discerned might be deliberate. Thor hoped sincerely that this would prove not to be the case.

  


Back in her aunt's flat, Sophie Douglas was also watching the news. She was thrilled by the cam-corder footage; trust the tourists, she thought, to make up for the absence of a news team. Then she saw the 'American doctor'; for the first time, since the crowd had been so much in the way at the scene.

"My God, that's that man from the County Hospital!" she said aloud. "What's he doing in London? Now, Sophie, think...You thought you saw him in another costume...what if he's really a superhero in disguise? He's _big _enough, isn't he? I could do it tomorrow if there's a superhero in town already...Is it worth it? I wonder which one it is? Am I even right? I suppose there's only one way to find out..."

Once the news broadcast was over Sophie went to bed. She was so excited at the prospect of trying out her powers against a real superhero that she found it impossible to sleep; her heart, that one organ which she was supposed to be resting, battered at her ribs as though trying to escape. After half an hour of this she knew she had to get up. Lying listening to her heartbeat, imagining that it might stop at any moment, was driving her crazy. She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

The small extra effort was enough. Sophie felt the pain; and, involuntarily, Sophie _thought_. The scaled and clawed monstrosity was intimately familiar to her as she succumbed to its cold embrace, felt its insubstantial claws drive needles of pain into her chest, into her heart itself. The odour of its breath was the odour of the grave, of a corpse dead a week and rotting; its strength was more than the strength of the strongest man, for in Sophie's imaginings now made flesh it could overcome any man and leave him weeping for mercy. Sophie reached for the pill-bottle on her bedside table, struggling against the pain and against the serpent-strength of the daemon _angina pectoris_.

At last she was able to get a nitroglycerin pill from the bottle and place it under her tongue. The daemon faded as did her pain, though she was not able to restrain herself from _thinking_ its hollow laugh as it finally vanished. This was the second attack she had had in a week, a fact which she had omitted to mention to her aunt. Angina pain has the frightful quality of convincing its victim of his or her imminent death. Faced with this sensation anew, Sophie resolved that she must not hesitate. She had to carry out her plan, as soon as possible. There would be no more delay; and it would be spectacular. Next day a superhero, perhaps even more than one, would fall at her hands.

  


Next morning Thor awoke before eight to find that Malcolm had already gone to work. It was his weekend on call, and he had ward rounds to complete. A note stuck to the bathroom mirror with Elastoplast told his guest to make himself at home; a spare key to the flat was attached. After a good deal of poking about in untidy cupboards and a refrigerator empty but for a mouldy piece of cheese and six cans of beer, Thor eventually located the coffee and the end of a loaf of bread. Most single men's apartments he had ever come across - Tony Stark's being an honourable exception - shared the feature that there was little edible food to be found in them. The years of fending for himself had long since eradicated from Thor's mind the old attitude that cooking was something servants did; but perhaps Malcolm, like so many other human men, thought it was what _mothers_ did.

Over his inadequate repast he watched the television news, eager to hear any more about the outbreak of strange appearances. This morning the news was largely taken up with events in Palestine, but at half past eight the announcer was interrupted. She told her audience that reports were coming in of a disturbance at the Palace of Westminster; then she handed over to the OB crew which had already arrived on the scene.

The sight which greeted Thor's eyes was enough to make him drop his coffee cup. He sat forward with an oath, slightly scalded, but did not remove his gaze from the TV picture; he was quite unable to do that. There, in front of his eyes, were the Avengers - but it was far from the current team of Avengers. There was Iron Man - Iron Man as he had not appeared for over thirty years, in his original dull grey armour! - and there was the Hulk; and, most appalling of all, there, resplendent in blue and red costume and winged helmet, was _Thor_.

'Thor' was standing on the roof of the tower of Big Ben, whirling his hammer about his head and calling down the storm to strike the building. 

Somewhere up there Ant-man and the Wasp probably flew as well, too small to register on the television cameras. Thor's first thought was that this simply had to be some kind of practical joke, though a 'joke' of a vicious and dangerous kind. All the visible 'Avengers' seemed to be intent on causing the maximum amount of damage to the ancient parliamentary building. 'Iron Man', even as Thor watched, used his repulsor rays to crack and fell one of the Gothic spires which edged the roof. 'The Hulk' broke a window. A line of policemen approached behind riot shields; and Thor - 'Thor' - called the lightning down to earth just in front of them. The line broke and they moved away.

"...unbelievable," the reporter at the scene was saying. "Witnesses claim, and in the light of recent events we have to believe them, that these impostors appeared from nowhere, out of thin air, and began to attack the building. Fortunantely, since it is Saturday, no Members were present; and all staff have been evacuated. The attackers ignored them, concentrating their efforts on damaging the structure of the House. Kate Wisdom, spokeswoman for the Avengers in New York, has confirmed that none of the beings apparently seen here has appeared in this form for at least fifteen years; and in most cases for far longer. None the less they have powers which resemble those of the real early Avengers; and they are obviously capable of inflicting heavy damage on the House. The Army has been called in. Meanwhile, we repeat our warning to the public: the Westminster area is sealed off and is to be avoided at all costs. The situation is highly dangerous. If there is any superhero watching, by the way, the police say they could do with your help..."

After another few moments the news programme returned to the studio, but not before Thor observed his counterpart strike a hole in Parliament roof with power from his hammer. "In the name of all the gods..." he murmured. "Can another being with weather-powers have decided to masquerade as me, for some reason of his own? But who, then, are the others?"

There was, quite obviously, only one course of action that he could take. He got into his clothes as fast as possible and retrieved his hammer from his briefcase. There was no armour to be donned in a magical flash of light; no further preparation to make. Just as he was he opened a window and observed to his relief that this side of Malcolm's flat gave on to a deserted back street. He climbed out, tidily shut the window behind him and took off, heading for Westminster.

  


In an alley near the Houses of Parliament, Sophie Douglas watched the assault of her constructs and was awed. She was particularly impressed by her rendition of Thor; she had never tried to make a _gestalt_ of a god before. 

"I was right," she said aloud. "It really, really doesn't matter if I don't know how he does it!"

Sophie was dressed in a trenchcoat and what appeared to be a pair of multi-coloured leggings. Had she removed the coat, she would have been revealed in the costume she had created for herself as _Gestalt_. The mask to accompany her fighting dress was in the coat pocket. She hoped that she would have the chance to display her work that day. But now was not the time. She wanted a closer view. Carefully she created for herself the _gestalt_ of a British policewoman's uniform and left the alley to join her 'colleagues' in the thin blue line.

  


As he approached, not for the first time Thor wished that he possessed more than a fraction of his deceased foster-brother's magical skills. A spell of invisibility would have been very useful at this point. As it was, no sooner did he approach the Houses of Parliament (and he was sure, as he passed overhead, that he heard one of the beleaguered policemen cry out, "Oh, no! Not another one!") than the 'Thor' on the tower roof, engaged as he was in removing lead roofing wholesale and throwing it over the edge to the ground below, observed his approach. 

His magical capabilities might be less flexible than he would wish, but Thor knew tactics. He recognised that the only possible form of approach in this situation was to take the offensive: to be, as Hank McCoy might have put it, as offensive as possible. He directed his flight straight toward his double, crying out as he did so, "Stand and fight, impostor! Be warned, you face the true God of Thunder..." 

The other did no such thing; he, or it, actually laughed as Thor landed on top of Big Ben, not twenty feet from his twin.

"How should I fear thee, since thou art the impostor thyself?" the other cried. "Where is thy godly raiment, churl? Where thy war-cape and thine helm?" Thor was astonished to hear the once-familiar Asgardian dialect ring_ in his own voice_ from the other's throat.

Below, unregarded among the police officers, Sophie observed the real Thor's approach enthralled. It was true! There was a superhero in town; and he was unmistakable, despite the unfamiliar clothes. Although she would never otherwise have recognised 'Dr. Donald Blake', with his self-effacing manner, as Thor, now she had the coincidence of their both being in London to assist her their identity was obvious. Dr. Blake, he of the broad shoulders and the startling yellow hair...She watched as the clash approached, without intending to concentrating so hard on her 'Thor'_ gestalt_ and on her clothing that the other 'Avengers' slipped from her control altogether.

Thor heard the murmurs and shouts from the crowd; he was even dimly aware, from the corner of an eye, that the other impostors had, like all the curious appearances of the past few days, vanished, leaving no trace. But most of his attention was riveted, willing or no, on his rival. Even as he watched, this other 'Thor' whirled the twin of Mjolnir about his head, creating wind and storm even as he might have done himself. 

Thor hurled his mallet full force at the impostor. That would be a devastating blow, if it struck; but he had no doubt that his opponent was some kind of magical construct rather than a living being. Mjolnir never went near his adversary. Instead, and unbelievably, the winds that other had made took the mallet and turned it away, causing it to fly off into the distance until its magic took effect and it made to return to its master. 

"Fool!" cried the other 'Thor'. "Thou hast thrown away thine only weapon, and ere it can reach thee again I will have thee!" With this, he lifted his own version of Mjolnir before him, as Thor himself would do did he seek to strike down his enemy with the hammer's elemental force.

Mjolnir swerved in the air and returned to him. Thor reached out a hand and grasped it instinctively; but in other respects his reflexes were slowed just a fraction by sheer disbelief. This impostor not only commanded the storm; he had, to all appearances, all the powers both of Odin's gift and of Thor's own birthright to his command. As Mjolnir settled back into his grip the _other_ Thor loosed his mallet's enchanted force and Thor himself was too slow by milliseconds, slowed by his astonishment at being thus assaulted by 'himself', to avoid the strike. 

Thor received full in his face the entire force of Mjolnir's elemental power, sufficient to slay an army of trolls had it struck aright. Thor was still the true god of thunder and could not be slain by these means, but he was not proof against the sheer brute force of the attack, nor entirely against its occult energies. Unconsciousness was instantaneous. Thor staggered backward and fell, a limp weight with Mjolnir's thong about his wrist only dragging him more inevitably down, from the roof of the tower of Big Ben one hundred and seventy feet above Parliament Square. 

Thor could not hear the gasp that went up from the crowd, nor yet the siren of the ambulance which some policeman with more presence of mind than his fellows ordered forward from its standby position. Nor did he hear the renewed gasp which ensued as his erstwhile adversary vanished into the thin air from which he had been conjured. Sophie Douglas, overwhelmed by what she had done, convinced she had killed a god, lost control of all her constructs save her own disguise; and 'Thor' disappeared as the other 'Avengers' had done before. 

  


When Thor regained consciousness he had no idea where he was. It was warm and the surface on which he lay was reasonably comfortable, though firm: certainly not a tarmac road nor the concrete of a pavement. Voices sounded nearby, male and female; most spoke earnestly and quietly, though a couple sounded amused or startled and one - a very young female - actually giggled. He could make out none of the words; something seemed to be muffling his hearing. 

Details began to register. Most importantly Mjolnir's thong was still around his right wrist and his hand held the hammer's shaft in a convulsive grip. As usual, something in him had acted to protect the magical weapon even when he was unconscious, as if the hammer were a part of his body. The air of the room, or wherever he was, was not only warm but smelled strangely familiar: traces of blood and antiseptic and vomit overlain with the potent stench of some powerful floor cleaner. Then Thor realised that he was naked from the waist up. A graze across his abdomen stung ferociously. His head throbbed as if an entire chorus of Mjolnirs were beating against his brain. And he lay absolutely flat on his back as though someone had arranged him like that. 

He tried to move his head and found that he could not. Something stiff and tight was clasped about his neck. In fact it also seemed to be this which covered his ears and prevented him from understanding what was being said around him. He lifted his hand to remove it. 

This provoked an instantaneous reaction. Two sets of hands grasped his limbs to restrain him, and two voices shouted at him. 

"No, no, you mustn't do that!" said a young man. "You might hurt yourself."

"Now then, flower," said a woman. "Let's just lie still until Doctor says it's all right, shall we?"

There was only one type of person in the world who talked like that. It occurred belatedly to Thor that he could always open his eyes. A square, box-like object hovered above him; it took him one or two seconds to place this as the business end of an X-ray camera. And the people resolved into a middle-aged woman in a blue dress and a young man wearing a white tunic top. Nurses. Of course.

"Ah, what...where...?" I don't believe this, Thor thought; I'm about to ask_ Where am I_?

"It's okay, sir," the male nurse said. "You're in hospital."

At last someone had said something helpful. "How did I get here?" Thor asked. "The last thing I remember is being on top of Big Ben."

"You fell off," the man replied, deadpan. "It's not every day we get a patient in from a superhero fight. We thought you'd be dead. But we're fairly sure you haven't even broken anything. We just need the consultant to look at the X-rays. You're Thor, aren't you? The real one? The paramedics said the police identified you. You were fighting somebody who looked just like you used to look. He hit you with something and you fell. Then he disappeared."

"Oh yes. I remember. He disappeared, did he? Just like all the others..."

"That's what the paramedics said, yes..."

Just then the female nurse, the one who had addressed Thor as 'flower', reappeared with a clipboard. Her manner suggested that she was in charge around here. She shooed her male colleague away from the stretcher so she could ask some questions.

"Now then, flower, let's take some details. I'm Sister Marshall. Could you give me your full name and address, please, including the post-code?"

Thor explained that the nearest he had to a home address was in the United States, but that he was staying with a friend in London. The sister asked for both addresses, please, because, "If you aren't a British subject, flower," somebody would have to pay the bill. 

_Just like home_, Thor thought. Despite the fact that he believed himself to be uninjured he felt bruised and battered and he had the worst headache he had ever experienced; he rather suspected that he had landed on his head. He just wanted the bureaucracy completed as quickly as possible so this aggravating woman would go away. Rapidly he gave his name, Thor Odinsson - the sister, oblivious, had him spell the surname - Tony Stark's New York address; and the name, address and telephone number of Malcolm Ross, the friend whose London flat had become his local residence. 

"Malcolm Ross, flower? You don't mean _our_ Mr. Ross, do you...?"

Thor stared at the sister for a moment. Of course. Where else would the paramedics have brought him but the nearest Casualty department? He was in Westminster City Hospital, the same hospital which he had visited, as a doctor, just the evening before. 

"...Well, fancy that," the nurse continued. "Couldn't be more convenient..."

In the background a man's voice boomed out above the general hubbub. "...Superhero fight, eh? Are you sure they're not pullin' your leg, Dr. Maitland? Though I'm grateful tae you for savin' me from a very borin' round; and from Sister Dalgliesh of course..."

The junior doctor mumbled something incomprehensible; then he said, "In the circumstances, sir, I was sure you'd want to know. A _superhero_, after all..." 

"Yes, I dare say. Unless someone_ has_ been pullin' your leg. Let's see the films. Mm. Nothing here. You say this chap fell off Big Ben? Who told you that, Maitland, eh? No spinal injury, nothing on the skull film...Let's have a look at him now, shall we?"

Malcolm never had been very patient with junior doctors. Thor lay and stared at the ceiling. There was absolutely nothing he could do. Even if he tried to make a run for it his friend was bound to see him. He was doomed. 

He closed his eyes, knowing even as he did so how ridiculous this was. That wasn't going to make it all go away. He forced his eyelids open again and looked up, straight into the face of Malcolm Ross.

Malcolm was good. He hesitated for no more than a second before carrying on with his examination, but Thor knew the orthopaedic surgeon had recognised him. In the brief moment before he got himself under control Malcolm's face conveyed just one thing: he was shaken to the heart.

"Amazing," he said several times. Then he spoke directly to Thor. "You're completely unhurt," he said. "Nothin'. You should be deid. All you have is a couple of grazes. There's no reason why you canna' go home." He turned around to his audience. "That's it. Show's over. Have you no' got any worrk tae do?"

Dr. Maitland and the nurses faded into the background. This was evidently just the effect Malcolm had hoped to achieve. He had something to say privately to his patient. 

"You can teek that collar off now."

"Thanks..." Thor sat up. He pulled at the Velcro fastening of the cervical collar and removed it with relief. 

Malcolm moved so that he was right alongside Thor as he sat on the stretcher. Quietly he continued. "You fell from the roof of Big Ben and you arenae hurrt. That hammer is yuirs."

These were statements, not questions; but still Thor answered, "Yes, Malcolm. Yes, that's right."

"Who are you, Don? _What _are you?"

Thor told him.

  


  


  



	3. The Last Thor Story - 3

3.

  


  


Sophie Douglas discovered that she had not after all murdered Thor when she watched the 6 p.m. television news on the BBC. This gave a few details of the strange events in Parliament Square but to Sophie's immense annoyance showed no film footage, despite the fact that she had clearly seen news cameras in action. Censorship ruled, it seemed. She had hoped for better but really she was not surprised. The whole episode was perceived as a threat to national security. 

Sophie had had enough trouble getting away from the scene herself, despite her powers. At one point she had had to spend half an hour sitting inside the _gestalt _of a post-box on a street corner before enough policemen left for her to depart without being questioned. But...there _was_ a superhero in town; she hadn't done him any real damage since the hospital had not even needed to admit him; she could try for a re-match as soon as she felt up to it herself. This time, though, she would know what to expect and she would plan accordingly. Her costume _would_ get an airing. She would do it somewhere less sensitive, so there would be cameras. The whole world _would _know her, by the time she had finished.

The news report did not finish with the statement that Thor had been treated for cuts and bruises and discharged from hospital. The television news team obviously felt that this long-absent hero's reappearance deserved more detailed treatment than that. When Sophie realised what they were about to do she grabbed a videotape and slammed it into the recorder; then she looked on enthralled as the BBC devoted almost five minutes of their bulletin to a potted biography of Thor. This included footage of some of his more sensational exploits with the Avengers. Superhero battles made superb television as long as the crew could get close enough without being blown to pieces by some weapon or mutant power, or vaporised by some spell. American news networks even had special teams who were paid danger money to cover such incidents. They won journalistic prizes regularly. 

At the end of the report the news team returned to contemporary events. Reporters had of course been waiting for Thor when he left hospital. He was shown - oddly dressed, in a pair of leather trousers and what appeared to be the top half of a surgical scrub suit - running the gauntlet of pressmen and refusing to make any comment. He was accompanied by a member of hospital staff, a brown-skinned man who would have seemed outstandingly well built had he not appeared alongside the superhero. This man shouted at the reporters in a Scots accent which was barely noticeable to start with but which grew thicker and more incomprehensible as he became more and more annoyed. The TV voice-over identified this irascible type as Malcolm Ross, former Scotland rugby forward and consultant orthopaedic surgeon. 

Thor was ushered by this surgeon into a waiting cab. The two men drove away, reporters and cameramen chasing them desperately on foot. Then there was a brief snippet of film evidently from some team which had had the foresight to bring its own fast transport. This showed Thor and his companion running from their cab through another gauntlet of journalists into the entrance of one of the Westminster mansion blocks. There was the curious minaret-like tower of Westminster Cathedral in the background. The door slammed in the reporters' faces and the television news moved on to another item.

Sophie did not know the Westminster area well, but she was reasonably sure that her videotape would, if studied diligently, provide her with enough information to find the apartment block in question.

  


Thor passed a long and boring day. Malcolm had been in no mood to talk as they drove away from the reporters in the hospital car park and as they evaded the second mob of reptiles, as the surgeon put it, at the entrance to the flats. He had simply left Thor in his apartment with instructions to rest and not to go out until he got back; then he had returned to the hospital, presumably leaving the mansion block by a back entrance to avoid the Press. 

It quickly became apparent that medical orders or no medical orders, Thor simply had no choice. The journalists did not give up easily. He and Malcolm arrived back at one p.m.; by six there were almost as many reporters outside as there had been initially. Not until it began to get dark at seven did they start to drift away.

The afternoon passed very slowly. Thor showered and changed his clothes, ridding himself of the garment he had borrowed to replace the shirt and jacket ruined in his fall. In the living room he looked at Malcolm's bookshelves, which contained a great deal on UFOs and dinosaurs and rugby football and almost nothing at all on medicine; though there was a huge and untidy pile of _Lancets_ and assorted specialist orthopaedic publications leaning precariously in one corner. He noted his friend's large collection of science fiction movies on laser-disc, SF novels and American comic books; and the total absence of anything suggesting a social life, save for a few flyers for SF conventions. 

The worst of it was that as Thor had observed that morning, Malcolm's apartment contained absolutely nothing to eat. Nor was there any money lying around which he could use to buy food. He had American currency in his briefcase, but that did not seem to be of any use unless he could get to a bank. After an abortive attempt over the telephone to find a pizza delivery service which would accept American dollars, Thor decided that all he could do was sit down and rest as his friend had instructed. He made coffee, put _Aliens_ in the laser-disc player, picked out a volume of Gene Wolfe short stories and settled down to wait. 

What Malcolm might have to say to him when he got back from the hospital was something he would just have to face. 

  


On a male surgical ward of Westminster City Hospital a recently employed immigrant junior sister reported for her night shift and found that her colleagues seemed strangely distracted. It did not take long for Jane St. Clair to discover the reason for the disorganisation. Even the ward's senior sister was unable to resist passing on the gossip.

"Jane! You'll never guess what's happened! They've had a genuine, American superhero admitted to Casualty. I bet you've heard of him. You might even have met him, mightn't you?"

Jane, who over the past few weeks had become sensitised to her co-workers' harping on her nationality (mostly they wanted to know if the American health-care system was as bad as they seemed to think it was; not an attitude which endeared them to Jane), felt an instant surge of annoyance. She had seen no news broadcasts that day, since she had been busy organising her extraordinary new accommodations. 

Katrina had at first been effusively welcoming. She and Jane had spent days exchanging their twenty years' worth of catching up, though Katrina was no more sensitive nowadays than she had been in nursing school. Her only comment on hearing of the break-up of her friend's marriage (or as much of it as Jane felt able to tell her) had been to say that men are all the same; one starts off with so many romantic notions but in the end it comes down to arguments about who always cleans the toilet. Jane kept quiet in the face of this. Not only did she not wish to say any more about her own affairs; she doubted Katrina had ever cleaned a toilet in her life. 

Then, a couple of days before, Jane's hostess had had to face, as she put it, "All these terrible bores from the Diplomatic descending on me, _dahling_." She had not been able to continue to accommodate her friend at home. Instead she given Jane the immediate, rent-free loan of an entire penthouse flat in Sloane Square ("Just the_ least_ I can do for a _dear_ old friend..."); an address which Jane would have been unable to afford on several lifetimes' worth of nurse's salary. Rearranging the furniture to suit herself and generally sorting out her belongings had been irresistible pastimes in the circumstances. She had no idea how long the arrangement would last, but the flat had felt almost immediately like home. She had even begun to think that the past might be going to leave her be. 

The mention of a superhero, _any_ superhero, was almost like a threat. 

Quite convinced that she did not want to know the answer, Jane asked the expected question. "Which superhero was it?"

"That's even more amazing. It was actually _Thor_, and I don't know if you know, but they're saying he isn't even human; he's some kind of_ god_ or something..."

Annoyance faded and turned to leaden inevitability. Jane felt herself turn pale and cold. Suddenly it felt as though nothing around her were real: not the ward; not the visitors scurrying about; not her fellow nurses and other staff members. Nothing was real. Her job wasn't real; nor was Katrina; nor her flat. None of it had really happened and none of it, nothing, mattered. Nothing mattered but fate. 

But _Wyrd_, I mean, she corrected herself. 

Jane almost turned on her heel and walked out, ready to leave, to go - to go somewhere, anywhere which might allow her some peace. Then she changed her mind. Shortly after that, she had an idea. Just before the other sister could realise there was something wrong she determinedly put the smile back on her face. "Oh yes. I've heard of Thor," she managed to say. "And you know...Everything they say about him is true." 

Jane moved off down the ward to take the report, but as she walked she thought about her recent induction course. As a sister she was expected to take her turn to act as hospital site coordinator, a job which neither she nor any of her colleagues, as far as she could tell, enjoyed at all. Now it did appear to have one advantage. Because she might have to answer telephone queries, look for patients' notes when the clerks had all gone home, do any one of many other little tasks, she had been given, along with all Westminster City's sisters, her own security code with which to access the hospital's patient database. If you knew a patient's name you could find their hospital number, their home address, their diagnosis; any one of a dozen interesting things. Later on she would have time to sit down and play with the ward's terminal. And then...then she would see. 

  


Sophie's aunt went to bed at eight, shortly after their evening meal. She was an early bird who liked to be up and about before six. Sophie sat and brooded for a short while then decided that she could not wait. While she did not yet feel physically capable of sustaining another battle, she felt an irrestistible impulse to test herself out again. She would find out if she could get to see Thor where he was staying without being either apprehended by the authorities, or recognised by the superhero himself. She decided this despite the fact that she was certain he would know her if he saw her. He'd been back to see her twice - or was it three times? She had made an impression there. 

Such an escapade would really test her creativity with her powers, she thought. She knew it was also foolhardy; but somehow this consideration bore little weight. She could not have said why, but the temptation to see Thor again, at close range, was impossible to resist.

When she was quite sure her aunt was asleep Sophie went through her videotape frame by frame. When she was certain of the mansion block's location she changed into her costume again. Once again she chose to wear a coat over the top, but she had decided from now on to wear costume on any occasion when it was even possible that she would have to fight. Thus attired, she left the flat and hailed a cab in a nearby main street. She asked the driver to take her to the Roman Catholic Cathedral, Westminster.

  


The closer her ship bore her to earth, the more certain Moondragon became about her goal. She could feel the psychic bond which she had thought broken strengthen, grow and live more certainly with every astronomical unit she crossed. She had tried twice to tap it, to gain some idea of what the Other was doing and where on the planet she might be, but she had had no luck. It was as though something was shielding the Other from outside scrutiny. That was very puzzling, though not yet worrying. It could simply be that the Other had learned to shield herself. There was, after all, every chance that she too might have psionic powers. Whatever the explanation, it was still necessary to go.

Once, it had been enough to know the Other was alive. Then it had been agony to realise that the bond was broken. Now, it was as though the mental tie were a fisherman's line. Moondragon was being reeled in. She could no more resist the pull, or the call, than she could by sheer force of will cease to need air to breathe. The closer Earth approached, the stronger it became. 

In the end, Moondragon ceased to wonder what was happening and resolved simply to follow the call's direction. As her ship passed Earth's moon she thought she could at last tell a little about where the Other was located. As they swung into Earth orbit, thought became knowledge. First she attended to her mental shields, wishing to hear but not to be heard; they would protect her from both psionic and magical intrusion. There were far too many super-powered beings on Earth to neglect such a precaution. She checked her psychic link to the ship's computer. Then she instructed the matter transmitter to send her down. Moments later Moondragon stepped onto Planet Earth, her first home, from which she had been too long away.

  


Sophie's diligence was soon rewarded. Of all the apartment blocks, houses and commercial premises in the vicinity of Westminster Cathedral there was only one whose outer appearance and surroundings matched that shown on the television news. Leaning against the trunk of a tree opposite, with the _gestalt _of tree-bark covering her from head to foot, Sophie was almost invisible as she watched and waited for the development which something inside her told her must happen tonight.

At nine-thirty a black cab drew up outside the block. The man who got out of it was unmistakable. If it hadn't been for his proximity to Thor on the news footage he would - bald patch and all - have been one of the largest and most athletic-looking men Sophie had ever seen. Malcolm Ross was home. Still Sophie waited. There was more. She could feel it.

Then, only five minutes or so after his arrival, Ross left the building again. He walked rapidly away in the direction of Victoria Station. Sophie knew immediately that this was her signal. Her next move had been dictated to her by Providence. She could not know why the surgeon had decided to leave like this, but the opportunity could not be denied. She dismissed her tree-bark; she waited a few minutes until she was sure Ross was not going to come back straight away; then she crossed the street. As she did so her appearance changed. By the time she reached the entrance to the mansion block the _gestalt_ of Ross himself, _within which_ Sophie walked, was perfectly formed. The entrance gave her the rest of her plan. There was no porter in the lobby; instead there was a set of doorbells and an entry-phone. One of the bells was clearly marked Ross'.

In Malcolm Ross's apartment the doorbell sounded. Thor went to the entrance-hall and pressed the 'talk' button on the intercom.

"Flat six, yes?"

"Thor? It's Malcolm. I've left ma keys up there. Could you let me in?"

Thor hesitated. The voice sounded right, but he was about 80% certain that he had seen Malcolm's keys in his hand. Then there was no reason at all why Malcolm should come back right now; Thor would be at the flat to let him in just as much in half an hour's time as he was at the moment. Also, in view of the the surgeon's strained manner on his return from the hospital it was slightly odd that he called him 'Thor' quite so casually. There was every chance that this was another reporter. After a few seconds curiosity won out; also, Thor was by now very hungry. Malcolm had gone to fetch a meal from his favourite Indian restaurant which, unfortunately, did not provide a delivery service. The last thing Thor wished was for this to be delayed. He pressed the buzzer which would allow the caller to enter the block. Shortly afterward, through the spy-hole in the door of the flat, he observed a person who appeared, indeed, to be Malcolm Ross. He opened the door. 

"Ah...Hi! Canna' think how I came tae...You havenae seen the keys anywhere, have you?"

Malcolm was standing on the threshold staring as if he had never seen the flat before in his life. Thor, baffled and still wary, moved aside. Malcolm entered and looked around the hallway for all the world as if he were trying to determine which of the six closed doors might lead to which room. 

"They aren't in the living room. You didn't put anything down in there. Where else did you go before you left for the take-away?"

"Oh, just...I went tae the bathroom." Sophie took a wild guess. It was a plausible thing for someone returning from work to do. When Thor did not immediately contradict her, she continued, "That's it. They must be in the bathroom."

Since Malcolm had indeed been in the bathroom before leaving, Thor was somewhat reassured; although he had not known that the euphemistic American usage of this word was in his friend's vocabulary. Malcolm had a Scots working-class bluntness of speech. Thor had even heard him make fun of the reluctance of some Americans to use the word 'toilet'. When Malcolm gave no sign of moving in the appropriate direction Thor went on ahead, opening the door and looking all over the room for any sign of a bunch of keys. Meanwhile he kept a watchful eye on the other man. Malcolm followed him hesitantly. He still looked as though he had never seen the flat before.

"Ah...Any sign?"

"Not in here, no."

"Well then, ah..." Malcolm turned and left the room. Thor followed, just in time to see the man who seemed to be his friend open another of the doors off the hallway.

"They aren't going to be in there, are they?"

Too late, Sophie realised that in her incipient panic - for she really had no idea what she wanted to say or do now she had got this close to Thor - she had opened a broom closet. "No, I guess not...Look, perhaps I dropped them outside..." She started to turn, wanting to reach the front door and flee before the superhero could place himself between her and escape. 

At that moment several things happened. A key rattled in the keyhole and the front door opened. Another Malcolm Ross walked into the flat. A magnificent scent of curry wafted toward Thor from the brown paper bag clutched in the new arrival's right hand. The first 'Malcolm' whirled with a strangely feminine-sounding yelp. For a second or two, two identical orthopaedic surgeons stared at each other: the first in horrified panic; the second in sheer disbelief. Then, before either of the other men could move, the 'Malcolm' who had returned for his keys took to his heels, barging past Thor and knocking his counterpart out of the way as he sprinted for the door.

Behind him Thor was dimly aware of Malcolm cursing obscenely as he retrieved the scattered remains of their evening meal from the floor. He raced for the doorway and was in time to watch the intruder start down the stairs. Thor followed, but stopped in shock on the landing. On the stairway, a floor below already, he could see a fleeing figure; but it was no longer Malcolm Ross. As the real Malcolm joined him Thor watched a young woman with very fair hair race in panic for the ground floor. Just before she disappeared from sight she looked up. Thor knew that face. He stared; then he turned to his friend.

"Did you see that as well?" he asked.

"It was me!" said Malcolm. "Then 'I' turruned intae someone else. A girrul! I already knew I had walked into one of ma oon comic books, Don. I realised that this morrning. Now, could you please tell me what the hell is gaein' on here?"

They walked slowly back to the flat. As they entered the front door Thor replied. "Malcolm, I'm truly sorry. I never meant to involve you in my problems. What can I say? Do you want me to leave?"

Malcolm bent down to retrieve the lid of a curry container. "We lost about a quarter of the food, I think," he said. "Should still be enough. I bought some milk and some bread and some tins of soup as weel. Sorry about leaving you tae starrve this afterrnoon..."

"Let me help you with that." Thor went through to the kitchen and fetched a mop. Between them the two men cleaned the floor and removed as much of the curry stain as possible from the Chinese rug. In silence they collected the remains of the food and some plates and took the meal through to the living room.

"I'll get us a beer," Malcolm said. Thor sat down. Malcolm came back with the entire six-pack from the 'fridge and two glasses.

"No, Don. I dinna' want you tae leave," he said eventually, between mouthfuls of curry. "I was just...surprised. Sorry I shouted. But what the _bluidy hell_ was tha'...?"

"As far as I could tell, Malcolm, 'that' was a girl I last saw in New York. In a hospital there. She was very sick at the time. I didn't know she was in England, let alone in London. Nor do I understand how she found out where I was staying..."

"You havenae seen the news, then!"

"Oh. I see. But even with that, I have no idea what she was doing here nor what she wanted. Why should anyone go to all that trouble just to stand in the same room with me and...and panic?" 

"Don, even if you cannae, I can understand _quite_ well why a young woman might want to get into yuir presence. I even had a bit of the same, back when I was playing for Scotland. If yuir...who you seem tae be, I'm surprised you havenae encountered..._fans_ before."

Thor raised his eyebrows. The thought had not occurred to him. "I suppose it could just be that. But how do you explain the disguise? I cannot imagine how that might have been managed. I had several minutes with...her. Until I realised my visitor was lost in what was supposed to be his own flat, I really thought it was you. It was a perfect copy. Even the voice!"

"I dinna' have any explanation, Don. We'll have tae be careful, though. Use a bell code or something. Just in case."

Conversation drifted to other matters: the excellence of the meal; the awkwardness of patients who always needed emergency surgery at inconvenient times and caused consultants to work twelve-hour days even at weekends; science fiction, about which Malcolm knew a great deal more than Thor. Malcolm drank three cans of extra-strong lager with a speed that seemed unjustified by the heat of the curry. 

"'Scuse me, Don. Must gae for a pess."

_Definitely Malcolm_, Thor thought. He watched his friend weave across the room. Although they had been involved in social drinking sessions on several occasions he had no idea whether it was Malcolm's normal habit to drink three or four cans of Red Stripe Special of an evening.

In the distance the toilet flushed. Moments later Malcolm stumbled back into the living room, a curious expression on his face. He stopped in his tracks on the threshold, staring at Thor. Then he burst out laughing. 

"...Malcolm?"

"Oh...I'm bluidy daft, arren't I? Take yuir heer oot of that goddamn ponytail and you...I should'ae known. We all should'ae known. Bluidy redeculous, eh?" The surgeon seemed to find this wonderfully funny. He literally rocked with laughter, teetering from foot to foot.

"Malcolm..!" Gods, he is drunk, Thor thought. He started to get up as Malcolm swayed again, looking for a moment very much as if he was going to pass out. But the surgeon recovered. He crossed the floor and sat down heavily on his chair.

"It's okay, Don." Malcolm stared at his guest. He giggled. "You dinnae mind if I _call_ you tha', do you?"

"No, of course not..."

Malcolm reached for his fourth can of beer, ignoring a half-formed gesture of discouragement from Thor. "Amazin' what a heerstyle and a change of clothes can dae. I wouldnae ha' guessed, you know. I would ne'er ha' guessed." He sat back in his chair, eyes closed, right hand raised to cover his mouth. His shoulders heaved.

"Malcolm, I..." Thor shrugged. In the past he had seen the surgeon pass out cold and he had even seen him drunk enough to take part in a karaoke contest; but he had never known him indulge in hysterics before. There was no way to judge how he might react. He might be too drunk already to hold any sort of rational conversation. But Thor knew that if he said nothing, if he acted as though all this were of no importance, he might as well say goodbye to their friendship right now. He might as well just leave.

"Malcolm," he said, "I meant what I said. I am truly sorry. Both for involving you with my problems and for keeping this from you. There are reasons. I thought they were good ones. My life nowadays wouldn't be worth living if everyone knew who I was. Do you think for one moment that the...that my _previous employers_ would have taken me on, if they'd known? Do you think that I could carry on working as anything, anywhere? I wouldn't even be able to walk down the street. Believe me. I've been there. And secrecy just becomes a habit. One which backfires sometimes."

"Yuir previous...I see what you mean. You know I used tae think..." The surgeon let out another brief laugh, though he sounded a little less excitable now. "You seemed the type. Dedicated. Focussed. _Celibate_, even. I used tae think that one day you were gaein' tae _join_ them. That you were...testin' yuir vocation, or somethin'. Guess I should'ae asked if you were a Catholic, but that's sortae.._.not done_, wheer I'm frae..."

Thor said nothing.

Malcolm took a small drink of beer. He seemed much calmer, as if the hysteria had blown itself out."I dinna' think I'd better have any more of that...Look. You arren't obliged tae explain yourself tae me, Don. It's your life. You dinna' _have_ tosay anythin'. But since you have...I appreciate that. Thank you." He paused for a moment. "Oh, ma heid is swimmin'...How aboot some coffee? I think I need it."

"Good idea."

"Uh...Don, would you mind? I dinna' think I can stand up right now..."

"Sure."

Thor went through to the kitchen and returned shortly afterwards with two large mugs of black coffee. "Sugar?"

"I think I need about four..."

A few minutes passed in silence. Malcolm applied himself vigorously to the task of getting some caffeine into his system. Eventually he placed his empty mug on the table. He laughed softly again; but this time he sounded genuinely amused. "It is funny, though. Really it is. That I never noticed anythin'. Even after you _cheated_ in that arm-wrestling match!"

"What?"

"You _knew_ it wasn't a fair contest. I'd never lost before in ma life!" Malcolm grinned lopsidedly. "So there we are. The Asgardian superhero Thor is a medical doctor who has spent seven years working for the Jesuits. You have tae admit it sounds pretty strange."

"And all true, I assure you..." 

"Well, I said I didna' want tae know, and now I do, I...It's nothing short of bizarre to find that yuir friend, drinking companion and fellow medical man is some sort of g.."

"Please, Malcolm. It's just me. What can I say? I can't help it..."

"Okay, okay. Don...Just give me a while tae adjust. That's all I need. After all, look at me. I've had ma own experience of bein' the outsider..."

"I know. Sure." 

There was another brief silence. Then Malcolm spoke again. "Actually I can imagine what some of the consequences might be if everybody knew. We had a good demonstration of that earlier, eh?"

"Yes...Though I suspect that that incident has something to do with other things that have happened recently. Other...out of place appearances."

"Oh, yes? Like the sea-serpent and the man who fell off the high wire? Is that what you meant by your 'problems'?"

"It was that sort of thing which brought me to London, yes. I have felt from the start as though these appearances were aimed at me. By someone who knows me well. Last night...tended to confirm this. Which leads me to ask just who that girl really is...If she is acting on her own it is a mystery. I never saw her before I met her in New York."

"She's nae someone out of your past, then. She looks...No' family or anythin'?"

"Not as far as I know."

Malcolm raised his eyebrows. He looked hard at his old friend. Thor looked as though he were contemplating something unpleasant. Family problems?

The surgeon wished as soon as the thought was completed that this had not occurred to him. He became abruptly and terrifyingly aware (and aware that despite what he had said, until this moment the fact really had not registered) that this man, his friend Don Blake, was really the son of Odin. He was _that _Thor, the thunder god of myth, once worshipped by millions of people. _Family_ problems? 

Malcolm felt his hair, or what was left of it, do its best to stand on end. This would never do, he knew; if he went too far down that path he would never be able to look his friend in the face again. "I think it's bedtime, Don. We're both tired out. At least I am; 'tired and emotional', as they say. And you dinna' look much better than I feel. How about it?"

"Excellent idea." 

"Well then...'night."

"Goodnight."

  


Eventually Jane St. Clair had an opportunity to sit down at the ward's computer terminal. For a while she had no luck. The database knew nothing of a patient simply named Thor; nor had it heard of a Don or Donald Blake. Then she remembered a conversation she had had with Thor many years before during which he had explained to her how his people, the gods of Asgard, named their children. 

There had been a context for this conversation. It had all started when Jane - like any young woman preparing to marry a man of a different culture - had asked if he would mind if she had their children baptised. As it happened he _had_ minded, a lot; it had very nearly produced their first major row. Jane shook her head. It had seemed so important at the time. She had been so naive. They both had been naive. If only they had known...She found she needed to wipe her eyes. Then she concentrated fiercely on the relevant details. 

Asgardians did not have patrilineal surnames. They were like Icelanders in that way; perhaps not in itself surprising. They named children after their fathers; or sometimes after their mothers. Which parent's name they chose to use seemed largely to be a matter of taste. And they simply added '-son' or '-dottir' to the parent's name. So Loki was Loki Laufeyson; Laufey the Giantess was Loki's mother. Hela was Hela Lokisdottir; she was named for her father. And Thor...Thor was Thor Odinsson, of course.

And there he was. He had been treated for minor injuries and then discharged; to somewhere, one had to assume. There was his American address, which Jane recognised as one of the many houses and apartments owned by Tony Stark. That figured. It was Tony's normal Manhattan residence. She had accompanied Thor to a party there many years before. She smiled ruefully. Her main memory of that evening was of the expression on the face of one of Tony's business friends when, after a determined attempt to pick her up, he had been confronted with the sheer_ size_ of his 'target's' boyfriend. 

And finally, there was the place Thor was staying in London. C/O Mr. Malcolm Ross. Good grief, thought Jane.

The database gave the full address. Jane knew exactly where it was. If she were to walk to Sloane Square from the hospital instead of taking a cab or the Tube she would go right past it. 

  


Lying in bed that night Sophie found that she was both pleased and disgusted with herself. The Ross _gestalt_ had been good; good enough to fool a friend of his for several minutes. It seemed as though her powers were becoming stronger and more reliable with each day that passed. But panic was bad; and she had undoubtedly panicked when the real Ross had come home. Worse, she had begun to panic before this. That was what she got for going into a situation without thinking it through in detail.

She did not have to wonder whether Thor had known who she was. His face, as they locked eyes on the staircase, had been a picture of shocked recognition. No point in any further sneaking around, then. As soon as she felt fit enough, that would be her moment to strike: this time openly, in costume, before as many people as possible. There would be television cameras and newspapermen; paparazzi and superhero specialists. They would all watch, all see her defeat one of the most powerful heroes of all. Then she could die happy.

Still planning her coup, Sophie fell asleep.

  


At four a.m. Sister St. Clair sat in her ward's little kitchen on her coffee break. She was alone. A staff nurse and a student were out on the ward; the two nursing assistants who had also gone for their breaks were both smokers and had elected to walk the couple of hundred yards to the hospital's only staff smokers' retreat. 

Good, thought Jane. Some decisions could only be made in private.

She sat still for quite some time, but in the end she could not prevent herself. She opened her handbag. From the bag's zipped interior compartment she removed a leather folder, about eight inches by five in size. For the first time in almost ten years she opened the miniature combination lock which held the two leaves together. The folder contained two display compartments for photographs, though only one of them was in use.

Jane was concentrating so hard on the folder that she was not aware of another woman who entered the room behind her. Samantha Cullen, student nurse, had come in search of the sister in charge in order to ask her to come to the telephone; but she saw immediately she entered the kitchen that there was something odd going on. She was not trying to pry, but as she stood irresolute she could not help but catch a glimpse of the thing which engaged Sister's entire attention.

The photograph in the folder was a professional quality half-length portrait of a man and a woman, evidently lovers. The man stood with the woman on his right; their bodies were half-turned toward each other and the woman clasped both her beloved's hands at chest level between them. On the third finger of the woman's left hand a ring with a deep red stone was just visible. The two looked not out of the picture but at each other; the man all rapt attention, the woman smiling a faint and astonished smile. They were both quite recognisable. The woman was the one who now called herself Jane St. Clair: several years younger in appearance and in the full glow of her now fading beauty. The man was tall, broad and blond; his face and his costume those which had once been familiar to millions as those of the Norse god of thunder, Thor.

Samantha remembered Thor from her childhood: the tall handsome superhero who had broken so many of her schoolfriends' hearts. She had also seen the news footage that evening before coming to work. She stared; but she was sufficiently perceptive to know that she absolutely had to keep quiet. There was something old and terribly sad here, she realised; something so painful and so private that even to let the other woman know that she had seen anything would be an intrusion. Quietly the student nurse turned and left the room. She would tell Staff Nurse that Sister was busy, or even that she couldn't find her. Staff would think her stupid; but at that moment Samantha could not have cared less.

Jane noticed nothing. She traced the outline of Thor's face on the picture with a finger-tip. It had always been there; but this business, knowing that the the man who could have been - _should have been_ - her husband was staying within half a mile of her, that she might meet him in a cafe or bump into him in the street, had ripped the scab off the badly-healed wound and loosed the pain that lay beneath. For years now she had been able to recall, all too clearly, just what Thor's father had done to her mind and her memory; how he had treated her as no more than a puppet while claiming to be acting for her good (and how she wished that at the time she had had the courage to say to Odin that she rejected his interference; that he was not _her_ God and that he should leave both her and Thor alone). But she had no idea what that tyrant might have done to his only son since the last time they had met, when he had behaved as if they were mere acquaintances; nor could she know what that son thought nowadays (nor, indeed, what he felt) about the events of so many years past. Those years were less than nothing to a man of Asgard; for her they had been for ever; they had been, as she would never be able to forget, an eternity of lies.

She stared at the picture for a few more seconds. Thor...his face said it all; he had loved her so much; and, like her, he was a victim of his father's sorcery. It was suddenly crystal clear to Jane that if she did nothing more she would never forgive herself. A fragile resolution took possession of her mind. She took a sheet of paper from her Filofax and wrote two sentences and a number. This paper she slipped unfolded into the folder's empty compartment so that anyone opening the folder would see the message straight away. Then she sat completely still, staring ahead, clutching the folder to her chest. 

Jane felt as though she were cuddling an unexploded bomb. She was contemplating something irrevocable; something for which, as she was aware, she had no rational motive; something whose consequences she could in no way predict. Anything might happen, from nothing whatsoever, to...She would not speculate further. There were still four hours until the end of her shift. By the end of that time she might have made her decision.

  



	4. The Last Thor Story 4

4.

  


  


At eight-thirty a.m. Malcolm Ross was awakened by the doorbell. His head felt as though a Norse giant had borrowed it overnight to use as a football. He stumbled out of bed into the hallway and pressed the 'answer' button before it occurred to him that it could be a reporter. 

"Whoesset?"

"Post," said a woman's voice.

"Thanks."

Malcolm grabbed his keys and opened the front door. At the last possible moment he remembered that he was stark naked. He returned to the bedroom for his dressing gown and staggered down into the hallway to the post-box. He was most of the way there when he recalled that it was Sunday. No postal deliveries on Sunday. 

Nevertheless there was something in his box. It was a small thin book-shaped something in a padded envelope sealed with adhesive tape. On his way up the stairs Malcolm noticed two things about the packet which were at least as strange as a Sunday delivery. First, it was addressed in large block capitals to Thor Odinsson. Second, the adhesive tape had 'Westminster City Hospital' printed all over it. 

Malcolm shrugged. A thought occurred to him; he prodded the package very hard. It felt real; but then, the apparition in the hallway had been solid enough to knock him over backwards. When he returned to the flat there was no sign of his guest, so he left the packet on the coffee table in the living room with a note which explained how it had arrived. He also wrote that he could be back from the hospital any time between twelve and five. He then had a shower, dressed and went out. Even on Sunday there was no escape from ward rounds.

  


Thor got out of bed finally at eleven a.m. He had slept badly as usual; this time the dreams had involved Jesuits who pursued him with weapons like those used by Surtur's demons. The lead Jesuit, he distinctly recalled, had his father's face. 

"You idiot," he berated himself. "You stupid, _stupid idiot_." 

After a shower he felt a little better. He took some toast and coffee through to the living room and sat down to eat. Half way through his breakfast he saw Malcolm's note and the package.

It was sealed with adhesive tape and it bore no stamp; the instruction By Hand' was scrawled in the upper left-hand corner. It was addressed to Thor Odinsson, C/O Mr. Malcolm Ross. 

Thor opened the envelope. Inside was a leather folder with two leaves; the sort of thing he had seen on sale for the display of photographs. Unlike most such things it had a little combination lock, but this had been deliberately disabled. Knowing even as he did so that to every instinct he possessed this item felt like trouble, Thor opened the folder and looked at the paper and the photograph within it. 

_Do you still have your copy_? the message said_. If so, come and give this one back to me in person_. And a telephone number.

"Oh," Thor said aloud. And, a moment or two later, "Oh," again. 

  


Sophie Douglas joined the press corps at about ten-thirty a.m. with the _gestalt_ of a sophisticated SLR camera about her neck and the _gestalt_ of a Press I.D. card in her pocket. She was prepared if necessary to remain in place all day in order to discover something - anything! - about Thor's movements and about what he might intend to do next. Nobody took any notice of her. Certainly she was not one of the regular London news photographers; but from the look of the little group on the mansion block's steps there were journalists present from several different countries. Perhaps she could be a Swedish or Icelandic reporter come to investigate the reappearance of one of the Old Gods. She certainly looked the part. Sophie grinned to herself. She had no idea where this mischievous idea could have come from, but it amused her enormously.

It was not until after three p.m. that her patience, and that of her 'fellow professionals', was rewarded. A black cab carrying Malcolm Ross drew up near the front entrance to the flats. As soon as the surgeon left the vehicle the reporters began to shout.

"Sir, could we have a word...?"

"How long have you known Thor, Mr. Ross? Would you say you were a _very close_ friend?" The journalist who asked this, Sophie considered, just had to work for a certain type of tabloid.

"What are his plans? Does he intend to settle in this country?"

"Why has he been out of public life for so long? Don'cha think that someone with his powers has a dooty to the public?" 

The last remark came, in a harsh Chicago accent, from a man with an ID card for one of the East Coast dailies around his neck. Sophie heard these and several even more impertinent questions from the group around her. She pretended to take some photographs, but she was not at all surprised when she saw that Mr. Ross had no intention of talking to anyone. Instead he barged through the group of newsmen and, as he had done the previous day, slammed the lobby door in their faces.

One of the journalists decided to lean on the doorbell of the flat, no doubt to see if he could wear down the surgeon's or the superhero's patience until they agreed to a press conference, or until they grew so irritated that they called the police to move them on. This in itself would be news, of course. Sophie began to lose interest. It was obvious she was getting nowhere with this tactic. Instead she wandered off on her own, turning down a side street alongside the apartment block. 

Twenty or thirty yards along the street an alley led off between Ross's block and its neighbour. The alley was small and deserted. As she walked along Sophie could see only the backs of residential buildings, each with its complement of closed windows and its fire-escape stairs. She dismissed the camera and press-pass _gestalts_; they would only cost her energy for maintenance, though it might have been interesting to see whether the _gestalt_ film in the camera could have produced real photographs. Sophie was fairly confident that it would have done. She gazed upward. From her misadventure of the previous night it was not difficult to determine which of the second-floor windows must belong to Ross's flat.

Right opposite these windows there was a fire escape for one of the neighbouring blocks. Perfect, Sophie thought. A few minutes later she was perched on a little landing half way up the stairway, disguised with the _gestalt_ of brickwork that exactly matched the building. A pair of binoculars was easily produced as well. Through the construct glasses she watched Thor as he sat in the apartment's living room and then as he spoke to someone whom she could not see.

  


The doorbell rang ferociously. Malcolm decided there was only one thing to be done. He retrieved a screwdriver from a drawer in his kitchen, turned off the mains power supply, opened the case of his entry-phone and disconnected it from the system. He turned the mains back on and went toward the kitchen; then he realised that his guest, assuming he was still present, had not reacted at all to the noise. He went into the living room and found Thor on the sofa, motionless as a statue, staring at a little photographic folder. 

"Don?"

The thunder god did not even seem to hear.

"Don! Whatesset?"

"Oh, hello," Thor said. "It's okay, Malcolm. It's nothing."

Malcolm stomped across the room and sat down opposite Thor. "I wouldnae have let you get away with that two days ago," he said; "And I dinna' see why I should let you get away with it now. Nothing, indeed. It's that package, isn't it? What's in it to make you look as though the end of the world has come? Tell me about it, for goodness sake." He grinned to indicate that what he was about to say was a joke, but the expression felt distinctly forced. "I dinna' think I can take the idea of a Norse deeity having a nervous breakdown in ma livin' room."

"Hah." Thor looked up at last. "I don't suppose it will come to that. Here you are. Take a look. But I warn you, it's a long story."

Malcolm gazed at the photograph for a minute or so. "Good grief," he said in the end. "It's a long time since you looked like that. You did well to get rid of the helmet, anyway...What a lovely woman, Don. Who is she?"

Across the street Sophie Douglas grew frustrated. She could see Thor's face as he conversed with someone - presumably with the surgeon Ross, whose guest he appeared to be. She could watch his gestures and she saw him hand something over to the other man, but she could hear not a word he said. She concentrated; so much so that she lost control of her binoculars and they disappeared. It didn't matter. 

She knew nothing about electronics; but then, she had been able, only the day before, to produce a full-scale working model, so to speak, of the thunder god himself without any idea of how his powers functioned. If she wanted to, surely she could...

It was easy. With a thought, with the merest wish to do so, she held in her hands a receiver ideally suited to pick up signals from the _gestalt_ microphone and transmitter which had appeared, fully functional and of the highest quality, attached to the window of Malcolm Ross's living room.

Sophie listened in fascination as Thor told Malcolm the whole story, of his disobedience and his exile and the finding of the Hammer; of his early career as a superhero and of the disasters in his private life to which all this had led. Despite herself she found she felt sorry for the thunder god and his erstwhile fiancée. It was like something out of the movies.

"So you see, when this picture was taken I didn't even know who I was. It was long before Odin removed the spell that hid my true memories from me. I thought I was the human physician Donald Blake, a man of Earth who had been given supernatural powers for some purpose I could not guess at."

"All that, just because you annoyed your old man? What a...!"

"You don't know the half of it. But yes, that was the reason...That was the day I revealed my secret identity to Jane and asked her to marry me. It was her idea to go to a photographic studio. I think she must have had some premonition, even then...Malcolm, she is about the only person I have ever met who simply did not care who or what I was. Everybody stared at her, you know; a young mortal woman on the arm of the Mighty Thor. But she never seemed to notice. Never seemed bothered."

"Well, I can understand that. The way she's lookin' at you..._Of course_ she didnae care about the rest of it.

"I know..."

Thor went on to describe how he had felt obliged, despite everything, to obtain Odin's blessing on their union. He told Malcolm of the awful result; of how his father had used magic to separate him from his beloved and to cloud their memories so that afterwards, none of it would seem to matter.

"Looking back, I can't even remember why we were so naive. Why we just assumed everything would be all right. We should have gone ahead and got married straight away. I don't know why we didn't. Though I suppose _he_ would have found some other means of interfering. We both assumed the request would be...a formality. That Odin had nothing to do with Don Blake _really_. If I'd had my true memories, if I'd known...I would never have made such a mistake. But I didn't. So I did."

"You make it sound as though he used to watch you all the time."

"He did."

Malcolm stared. "Good grief. Just like somethin' outae..."

"Not going to say _1984_, are you, Malcolm?"

"Well..."

"It's over now, anyway. Odin is dead..."

"Dead, eh? There's a good deal more tae tell, I can see...But dinna' let me interrupt. Go on..."

"Dead ten years. And so are all his little personal sorceries. That's the only reason I remember all this. I thought Jane was in New Jersey, a happily married woman with a teenage son, probably several other children too. She always loved children...Now I don't know what to think. Why does she want to see me? I suppose I knew the magic must have left her as well. What did that do to her - to her family? I just don't know." 

"Good grief, Don," Malcolm Ross said again. Then, "You are goin' tae call her, aren't you?"

Thor hesitated for a second, then he said, "Yes, Malcolm. Yes. Of course I am."

Sophie scrabbled in her pockets. Something told her she would need to write things down and she did not have a pen on her. Fortunately this did not really matter. She wished it; and the _gestalts_ of a reporter's pad and a ballpoint pen appeared in her hands.

"So...?" Malcolm said. 

Thor looked hard at his friend. Was he enjoying this? Perhaps it felt like revenge of a sort. "Okay, okay!" he said, and picked up the telephone.

Someone at the other end picked up the handset half way through the first ring.

"Hello?" 

"...Hello." Thor's mouth was dry. The word came out almost as a whisper. "Is that you, Jane?"

"Oh my..." There was a muffled _thump_ noise at the other end of the 'phone, as if the woman speaking had sat down abruptly. "It is, isn't it?_ Thor_...!"

"Yes, Jane. It's me. I...Do you really want to meet?"

In the background Malcolm Ross urged him on, mouthing _Go on_! _Go for it_! Thor tried to ignore him.

"Yes, of course I do..." Jane replied after a moment. To Thor she sounded more melancholy than anxious to renew their relationship. "When would be...convenient?"

"Jane?" Thor made one decision, at least. He drew a deep breath. "As soon as you like, Jane. I have no other...commitments. What do you...?

Jane hesitated, but she still had some pride. "Not today, Thor. I'm on night duty. Got one more shift to work. But I have a week off after that. Tomorrow I'll sleep for a couple of hours, then...One o'clock suit you?"

"Yes, yes, of course...Tomorrow. Jane, where...?"

Jane gave her address. Thor repeated it to her to ensure that he had it right as he wrote it down.

"Okay...One o'clock, then."

"Fine. Thor, I...I mean, I'll look forward to seeing you."

"And I to seeing you..."

"'Bye. And don't forget to ask the concierge for Jane St. Clair. That's my name now."

"All right...Goodbye..for now..."

Eventually Thor registered the dialling tone in his ear and realised that the call was over. He felt as weak as a child. He was committed; to this call, at least. The outcome could not be predicted. Perhaps she hated him now and wanted to tell him what she thought of him. Perhaps...perhaps not. He could do nothing else. He had to find out.

Sophie heard most of Thor's end of the conversation. She took her_ gestalt_ notebook and wrote down the important parts of the address. She dismissed her microphone and her brickwork and crept down the fire escape. Shortly afterward, at Victoria Station, she purchased a real notebook and pen to make a permanent record of the result of her spying. By the next day she would feel ready for battle; and she knew where Thor was going to be and when he would be there. That was all that mattered.

  


At two a.m. Thor woke from a disturbed sleep. Again, for a few moments, he was not sure where he was. He had dreamed of the Avengers' Mansion disaster and of the death of Asgard for the hundredth or the thousandth time; but this time the slim armoured figure who died before his eyes had red hair; and at the moment of her passing she cried out his name in Jane Foster's well-remembered voice.

He shook his head to rid himself of the vestiges of dream. He realised quickly that he would not sleep again with any ease. He leaped out of bed and almost brained himself on the sloping ceiling; Malcolm's spare bedroom was little more than a cupboard. Then he walked through to the living room naked as he was and sat on Malcolm's sofa for ten minutes or more in the dark, collecting his thoughts. He knew the power that lived in him and he knew what it could do. He fancied already that he could feel the storm build somewhere overhead and hear the thunder that rumbled at the edge of the world; that he could sense the electric tension in the high cloud which might, did he wish it, strike to demolish some great monument, or do something as simple, as devastating, as stop a human heart. On occasions in the past he had cut loose and let everything fall as it might. Almost every time he had lived to regret the outburst. It must not happen; or if it did, it must happen in a place where it could do no harm. 

He retrieved Mjolnir from beside his bed. Almost as an afterthought he put on his trousers. He needed no clothing for warmth; he was not capable of feeling the cold as humans did; but he had to respect his adopted world's sensibilities. When he returned it might be daylight and the reporters could be back. It would not help anybody - and certainly not his own state of mind - if he were to appear naked, save for whatever retouching the censor might require, on the front page of the _Sun_.

Malcolm would never speak to him again..._And I thought_ he _was hysterical_, he thought. He stood for a moment, clasping Mjolnir to his chest, regaining concentration. Then he went to the window through which he had left for Westminster on Saturday morning. It was still unlocked. He climbed out onto the sill. Moments later he was in flight.

He headed northward, toward the places he had known best in his youth. As he gained height the sharp coastline of Scotland lay beneath him in moonlight as if on a map; moments later the wild fjords of Norway swung into sight and, far to the north-west, Iceland; the last stronghold of his people's religion. He did not dare venture near the place. Instead he headed northward and eastward to the skies above Finland, a country whose legends knew nothing of gods. 

In the far heights above the tundra and the lakes he found that which he sought: a thunder-cloud forming. He headed for the heart of it, revelling in the moisture and the vast electrical potential and the icy cold. He entered the storm and he willed himself to become its mind and its focus; and its lightings and its thunders to be the voice of his troubled consciousness.

His father's sorceries had taken this away. Sif, the friend whom long ago he had convinced himself he loved, had insulated him from it. Both were long gone; and he had no protection. He remembered only too well. His father...Odin had enspelled his mind, his thoughts, his heart. But Odin was not, had never been, God; no matter what he had had his people believe. His word was not eternal. His lesser magics were just that: deceits and glamours which depended on their weaver for their existence. And Odin was dead...

"Jane!" he screamed; and his voice was one with the thunder.

He remembered what his father did to them; how they were separated. He could no more have prevented Odin's actions than he could stop the rotation of the galaxy; both were too immense and too inexorable for him. His tongue was stilled, his mouth stopped; it was as though something passed gently across his consciousness, removing the desire for protest. Then she was gone. And later, when he rescued her from the Runestaff, surely he had felt that sorcery again; or its echo. He remembered Jane's baffled and ensorceled manner; his own halting speech; how he had no choice but to turn from her, since the words he yearned to say refused to leave his mouth. 

"I thought you were happy, Jane," he murmured. "Far away from me. I could bear it when I believed that." 

And she asked if he still had his copy of the photograph. Thor knew precisely where it was. It was in an envelope in a safe-deposit box in the vault of the First National Bank in New York, along with his few other valuables. Along with them it had remained untouched these ten years or more. Jane could be reassured that he still held that memento in high regard; the highest. It lay in one of the most secure places in the city, alongside the little that remained of his ancient wealth.

In his hands Mjolnir glowed white with the storm's rage. Thor felt the hammer shiver with the force it contained; a force which cried out to be loosed. In the heart of the storm-cloud he raised the ancient weapon above his head and commanded it to release its might. "Odin," he cried aloud. "Odin! Wherever you are! Father! What have you done to me?"

Vast energies blazed from hammer to earth and back, splitting the night; thunder rolled from horizon to horizon; but the storm made no reply.

"What have you done to _her_?

  


  



	5. The Last Thor Story 5

5.

  


  


  


When Sophie awoke it was as much as she could do to contain herself until after she had breakfasted with her aunt. It felt like the most important thing in the world that she should get to the address she had overheard before Thor did. It would be sensible to do so. She could watch him arrive and thus double-check on his whereabouts. If she were in good time she would also be able to tailor her battle-plan to the geography of the area; first-hand information was much better for that than a map. But Sophie knew there was more to her sense of urgency than any of this. She could no more have kept away than she could have rid herself of her own mutant powers. 

These seemed to be increasing; or perhaps she was merely becoming adept at their use at last. Before she set out she had the idea of creating for herself the_ gestalts_ of several small blood vessels to bypass the atheroma which had blocked so many of her coronary arteries and led to her heart attack. This temporary addition doubled the blood supply to the affected muscle. There would be no attacks from the daemon angina that day; it was _essential_ that there should be no such attacks.

  


Moondragon had spend two nights on the London streets, preserving herself both from cold and from assorted physical dangers by the judicious use of her mental powers. It was not difficult to convince would-be muggers, or policemen, or the randomly curious, that they had not really seen a shaven-headed woman in a green monastic habit - or that even if they had done, it didn't really matter. Nor was it difficult to convince the occasional alcoholic tramp that she was something more akin to a pink elephant than to a human being. She called this power her_ Someone-Else's-Problem effect_, after something in a science fiction story, and it was a trick childishly easy to play on most human beings. She could even leave it running, so to speak, when she was asleep; as she could the molecular-level telekinesis which kept a layer of warm air around her at all times.

The trouble was that her target was moving around so much. Presumably she was just using the public transport system, but her movements were so frequent and appeared so random that it was difficult to imagine what she might be doing. She was shielded as well, though in a manner Moondragon could not determine for certain; though she suspected it might be magical. In fact the shields were_ so_ odd that they had their own 'signature' and were therefore traceable, but they were enough to confuse even a psychic adept for a limited time. Moondragon, though, was both persistent and, had she admitted it to herself, almost desperate. This might be her only chance and she was not going to blow it. Her doggedness was paying off. She felt now that she was very close to her target, who was, for some reason, 'brighter' in her mind each day and therefore increasingly easy to track. 

Moondragon approached the front entrance of a Westminster mansion block just after midday on Monday, heading in the direction of her last strong 'contact'. For some reason, half the London press corps seemed to be camped out on the steps. In normal circumstances the priestess might have surrendered to curiosity and used her powers to discover what was going on, since her lifestyle over the past few days had not allowed her to catch up on the news; but the circumstances were not normal. She had no wish to become tangled up with a bunch of reporters. Apart from anything else, the delay would be unacceptable. She turned aside and headed down a narrow street which would take her around the back of the block.

As soon as she turned the corner Moondragon saw a man leave the building by a basement entrance which seemed to be intended for the use of garbage collectors. He headed away from her down the road. He seemed oddly familiar. He was a distinctive figure altogether: tall, blond and exceedingly muscular, almost of body-builder proportions. He had long yellow hair tied back in a pony-tail; in one hand he carried an old leather briefcase which seemed to contain something heavy. He was wearing a black T-shirt and black leather trousers. There were one or two people around. Some of them seemed to find the man curiously interesting. They were staring at him.

It was risky, but Moondragon could not resist the temptation to reach out with her mind. She did so cautiously, shielding herself, and for less than a second; but that was enough to stop her in her tracks. A man bumped in to her and was astonished by what he saw; it took a few moments to drive her image from his mind and in that short time the man ahead had turned a corner and was gone. Moondragon said nothing. Curses would have been far too weak to express her astonishment at discovering that the blond giant was no 'man' at all. She knew the thunder god well; in fact far too well. His mind was intimately familiar to her. To find him here, now, was completely unbelievable. The worst part of it was that it might indicate that he knew what she knew. 

Moondragon pulled herself together. She had to follow her own target, not some long-ago and painful memory. The Asgardian was no psychic. How could he possibly know? She did not see Thor again, since in order to avoid the risk of becoming lost he had decided to travel by public transport and was, even as Moondragon moved on, crossing Victoria Street toward the entrance of St. James's Park underground station; and she was too afraid of being noticed to attempt to keep track of him mentally. So she did not know, as she followed the still-elusive mental spoor of her quarry, that she and Thor were heading more or less toward the same place.

Sloane Square has its own Underground station, just a couple of stops along the District Line from St. James's Park. It took Thor less than twenty minutes to get there. The Square itself was open and pleasant with a small railed-off piece of parkland at its centre, surrounded by quiet roads. The open space contained a formal garden and trees. Three or four young women sat on benches talking while babies slept in perambulators and children played nearby. Thor gathered, from the uniforms which they wore and from the age range of the girls involved, that these were not mothers but nurses or nannies; the servants of the local gentry. The few cars parked in the street were Jaguars, Bentleys, even a Rolls Royce, reflecting anything from moderate to unlimited wealth.

It was scarcely believable that Jane Foster might have an apartment here. Thor looked around him. It was all very quiet; exceedingly well-kept. The large houses were mostly in single occupation, to judge from the door-bells; only one or two blocks, evidently purpose-built as apartments, gave evidence of more than one owner. It was not difficult to find the address Jane had given. 

There was no entry-phone, but there was a concierge or porter in a booth just within the spacious lobby. This elderly gentleman wore a discreet uniform and had the automatically suspicious demeanour of one accustomed to protecting the wealthy from the tiresome world outside. His manner indicated that he did not like the look of this body-builder, weight-lifter or whatever he was; not that there was anything in the way he spoke or the way he acted which could have been called less than polite. 

Thor kept his face determinedly straight as he read the name on the badge which the man wore above his military medal ribbons: _Parker_.

When Thor asked for Jane's apartment (remembering, as Jane had told him, to ask for Miss St. Clair), Parker's' approach changed visibly. Having lived for so long in the United States Thor knew that he spoke English with an American accent; this connected him immediately with the _déclassé_ person who now occupied Lady de Betancourt's penthouse. 

"Ah, the American, ah, lady. Of course. Your name, please, sir."

Thor took a certain amount of satisfaction from telling the man that his name was _Doctor _Donald Blake.

Parker pressed a switch on his intercom board. Thor heard a woman's voice, not recognisable over the communication system as Jane's, ask who it was. The porter told the woman that a Dr. Blake was in the lobby. There was a momentary silence; then the voice over the intercom told Parker to allow the visitor to come up.

"Flat five, sir. The penthouse. I'll show you to the private lift."

The door to the lift had to be unlocked with a key which Parker produced from a drawer in his booth. Thor was thankful on the journey upward that the little man did not felt impelled to accompany him. It took just a few seconds. The penthouse lift bypassed all other floors. Smoothly it drew to a halt and then the doors opened, giving Thor his first sight of the flat now occupied by she who had been Jane Foster.

  


Below, in the square, a young woman in a private nurse's uniform gently rocked a perambulator in which a young baby slept. Both the baby-carriage and the child itself were _gestalten_, as was the uniform; a _gestalt_ of a nurse's cap hid the woman's white-blonde hair. Sophie Douglas was wearing her costume, this time hidden only by the construct clothing she had made for herself. Refraining from speaking to any of the genuine nannies, she had been at her post in Sloane Square for over an hour, waiting and watching. 

She recognised Thor immediately he arrived. He entered the apartment building and did not reappear. Well, she knew that he had some personal business to attend to in there. She could afford to be merciful. She would allow a little time; then the next stage of her plan would begin. 

  


The corridor stretched away from the lift toward a lighted doorway. It was decorated in outdated minimalist chic, with stark white walls and a black and white pattern of ceramic tiles upon the floor. The only decoration was a framed photograph, also in black and white, of a lonely North Sea beach with, in the distance, a single stunted tree. It did not look like the kind of place where the Jane Foster Thor had known would have chosen to live. Thor recalled the New York apartment Jane had inherited from her aunt. It had been cluttered in comparison, with Art Deco furniture, thick pile carpets and Tiffany glass in several windows. Jane had loved it so much that she had never altered it, despite the legacy which would have allowed her to indulge any whim.

He walked along the corridor. As he stepped forward the lift door closed with an audible sigh. As if this were a signal, a woman appeared in the doorway ten yards away, silhouetted against the light.

This time her voice was perfectly recognisable. "Come in, Thor," Jane said. Then she turned away.

The sitting room was in keeping with the corridor. Thor entered through a doorless arch to be confronted by a further expanse of black and white. The room was at least fifty feet square. There were white walls upon which were mounted a few more black and white photographs; white carpet on the floor; black leather Bauhaus chairs grouped about a white tiled coffee table; dark greenish-grey Lakeland slate fireplace. There was no fire, of course; instead a screen with a black and white Beardsley print hid the chimney from sight. 

It was one of Beardsley's _Lysistrata_ illustrations: brilliant sexual satire or sophisticated pornography, according to taste. Again, this hardly reflected the taste of the Jane Foster Thor had once known; the Jane who had been so strait-laced, who had absolutely refused to do more than kiss him before they were married. Even if none of the furniture were hers she could presumably have chosen to place this item out of sight had she so wished. Evidently she too had changed. 

Thor stood just inside the entrance, uncertain what he should do next. Jane sat in one of the chairs. For long moments she just stared, as if she did not quite believe that he existed. Then she got to her feet again and slowly crossed the room toward him. 

"Hello," she said.

"Hello, Jane." Thor saw the lines on her face; the grey streaks in the auburn hair. She seemed to have aged a great deal more than thirteen years since he had seen her last. The hair was long, unstyled and loose down her back; she wore no makeup; she was dressed in an oversized white shirt and black leggings. She had lost fifteen or twenty pounds in weight off a frame that had never been large. It was, Thor realised, the first time he had ever seen her like this. During the long-gone days of their relationship she had always appeared impeccably groomed; she removed her makeup and let down her hair only in the inviolable privacy of her bedroom. Every time he had seen her she had been conservatively well-dressed and carefully shielded from the world by her foundation and her eye-shadow and her lipstick. Now she looked her age; she looked like a woman who had seen the world's pain and had ceased to think she could deny it. There were even dark circles beneath her eyes. The 'old' Jane would have died before she would have shown herself in public with such faults visible for all to see.

Thor thought he had never seen her looking more human; nor more beautiful. He dropped the bag containing his hammer on the floor. "I'm here, then," he said.

"Come and sit down. I've made coffee. Would you like some? Then we can eat." Jane smiled distractedly at him, not meeting his eyes. She walked on past without waiting for an answer. Thor, seeing no alternative, took one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs and sat down.

There was a small kitchen just off the main room. Thor could see chromed fittings and more black and white tiles. There was a black-enamelled Aga cooker in one corner, across from the doorless entrance. Again, Thor wondered what on earth Jane was doing in a place like this. He waited. Eventually she reappeared with a tray which held two glass cups and a cafetière: more _passé_ yuppie chic. Thor got to his feet as if to help, but she brushed past with a whisper which might have been_ it's all right_. The tray went on the coffee table. Jane took a chair not next to his but opposite. 

"Thanks for coming," she said. It was as though she were talking to a financial advisor.

"Ah..yes. Well...How are you, Jane?"

She did not reply immediately. Instead she poured coffee, made an elaborate performance of adding cream and sugar. Her hands shook slightly, Thor observed; a little sugar landed on the table. "Well enough," she said in the end. "Just off nights. Tired. You know how it is, don't you?"

"I guess. I spent three weeks on night duty before coming here."

"Don never could cope with nights."

"Not 'Don Blake', Jane. I don't do that any more. There's just me."

"Ah. I see..." Jane appeared to lose interest. "Well, then...What have you been up to, Thor? I was...frankly astonished, to hear you had come back. You haven't even been heard from for more than ten years." She leaned back in her chair. She clasped her hands together and gave another brittle smile. Then she stared directly at Thor for the first time since his arrival. Her smiling distant manner, he observed, was nothing but a front. She tried bravely to hide it, but Jane St. Clair was terrified. 

_As afraid as I am_, Thor thought. He could not now recall why he had been so sure Jane would be in control of this situation. It was obvious that she had no more idea than he did of what the outcome might be; of what they might find to say to each other after all this time.

For several minutes the conversation proceeded awkwardly enough. Thor described his recent career in a few sentences, provoking only a brief lift of the eyebrows from his companion as he told her who his employers had been. In reply Jane told him about the three or four nursing jobs she had held prior to her decision to do some travelling before, as she put it, it was too late. 

Jane did not even mention Keith Kincaid, nor her son James. She wore no wedding ring. A hideous suspicion took possession of Thor's mind; but he had no idea how to raise the subject, what questions she might regard as acceptable from him. In the end he simply could not ask.

They drank their coffee. As soon as the cafetière was empty Jane disappeared to obtain a refill, as if she were reluctant to be left in Thor's presence without some kind of distraction. He heard her crashing around in the kitchen, making what seemed to be an unnecessary amount of noise. Once, he had known her so well. He would have known precisely what she was thinking; what she needed him to do or say. Now she was a stranger and he could only guess. He felt that all this was his own fault. Once he had come to understand the full implications of Odin's death he could have - should have - sought her out. He could only imagine what she might have had to bear, alone. While he waited Thor prayed to he did not know whom for the courage to speak and for the wisdom to find the right words.

As she waited for the kettle to boil Jane wiped the back of a hand viciously across her eyes. It came away damp. She sniffed. It was all going wrong. If they went on like this they would end up by eating lunch and then politely bidding one another goodbye, just because she was too much of a coward to prevent it. She stifled a groan. _Not again_. She recalled her old cowardice in the face of Odin. Something within her was still convinced that had she appeared stronger at the time, had she stood up to him, he never would have found it necessary to put her to the test; that she had brought it all upon herself. 

Eventually she gathered up the coffee and the cups and left the kitchen. Thor was sitting where she had left him. He looked up and caught her eye; and simultaneously they began to speak. 

"Thor, I..."

"Jane, do you...?"

They stared at each other. "Oh Lord," Jane murmured. "What am I doing..."

"I'm sorry, Jane. I just don't know what you want me to..."

"I don't..."

"Look, shall we start over?"

Jane walked slowly across the room and put the tray down on the table. She stared at it for a second, then she said, "Sounds like a great idea to me...Say, do you actually want more coffee? I think I could do with something a bit stronger. Join me, Thor, please, or I'll feel like an old alkie."

"Okay. We'll have the coffee later."

"Wine?"

"Sure."

Jane went back to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of white wine, a corkscrew and two glasses. She tried, but in the end she had to hand the bottle to Thor. Her hands were shaking so much that she could not open it. Thor poured two glasses and handed one of them to her. She drained it in one draught.

"Better?" Thor sipped at his glass. "That's very good."

"Better. Katrina gave me some tips. She's a friend. I'll tell you later..."

Jane refilled her glass and then sat back in her chair. She dipped a finger in the glass, licked wine from it absently. It could almost have been a seductive gesture, but she was looking not at Thor but into the depths of the wine, as if she could divine the future from it. Thor made a decision. It seemed as though all weekend people had been getting drunk at him. Either he would be direct, or he would have to give up. After all,_ she_ had invited_ him_ to visit.

_The worst thing she can do_, he thought,_ is throw me out_. "You asked me what I had been doing," he said. "I will tell you everything, if you really want me to. But I would...I also need to know. Jane? What in the world has become of you? How is it that you wish to...renew this...acquaintance? For we parted on such dishonest terms. I treated you very ill; and it seems a pathetic excuse even as I say it when I tell you that as ever, my mind was not entirely my own."

At last Jane looked straight at him. Her eyes shone with unshed tears. She took a deep breath. "I know all that," she said. "I could work that out for myself..._He_ was ever the schemer, wasn't he?" She leaned forward. "...And I will answer your question. But first, tell me, Thor; I have to know...What has he done to you since then? And how is it that you are here, a free man, after all this time? Or_ are_ you...?"

The brittle facade was cracking. A tear spilled over and ran down Jane's face as Thor looked on. "Aye, a free man. You do not know, do you, Jane. But...Be sure you really want me to tell you..."

"Please, Thor. I have to know. I thought...I hoped...Oh, Thor, this sounds dreadful...I hoped that maybe you would _need_ to know as well, about me. That's so...presumptuous. But it's the honest truth. It's how my mind was working when I decided to contact you. That's why I...If I'm all wrong, if...I mean, the thing is...Oh, I don't even know that you haven't left a wife and children behind in South America." Her voice rose a tone or two; she giggled, a little shrilly. "After all, you were only working for the Jays, you hadn't_ joined_ them! I knew you and Sif...Did you ever, I mean...Oh, Thor. I've said too much, haven't I? I just don't know when to shut up. Why don't you tell me to shut up?" She covered her face with her hands.

"Jane, it's all right. Please. It's all right..." There was no response. Thor moved into the seat next to Jane's. Hesitantly, and only because he could think of nothing else to do, he reached out and drew her right hand away from her face. "I'm not about to_ tell_ you to do anything."

Jane dropped her other hand and looked down. She glanced up at Thor and back again. He realised that he had not let go. She was staring at their clasped hands. He felt her fingers stiffen, perhaps involuntarily. Gently, he placed her hand down upon her knee and moved back.

"You haven't said too much," he added, after a moment. "And as for Sif and the rest...Perhaps it would be better if both of us said a little more."

"Yes. Yes, we must." Jane smiled at him wanly. "Let's make...a deal, eh? You tell me yours and I'll tell you mine. I think we both want to, don't we?"

"I think we do."

"It's difficult, though, Thor. God knows it's difficult...Last time I saw you was at my _wedding_. When I married...Keith."

"I remember. I was there as Don Blake; and it was almost his last public appearance, as well. But I do remember."

"Whatever became of him, Thor? It's strange to think of you working as a doctor without him."

"I thought so myself to start with. It was after the first war with Surtur. You must remember that. The legions of Asgard encamped in Central Park..."

"Oh, yes! I remember all right. It was in all the papers. On the television for days. I thought it was all very interesting, though it didn't seem to have much to do with me..."

"In the end, after many misadventures, everything in Asgard was restored to how it had been. Odin was on his throne and for a while, I was at his side, as he wished me to be. But he did not know how deeply I resented something he had done. One day I could stand it no longer. I went to him and asked - no,_ demanded_ - that he restore to me the Don Blake identity, which he had seen fit to destroy."

"What?_ He_ did that? I should have guessed, shouldn't I?"

"It was just at the beginning of the war. I had a fight with an alien called Beta Ray Bill. It was all a misunderstanding. He was really on our side. But afterwards, Odin altered my hammer's magic so that it would no longer allow me turn into Donald Blake. As I am sure he was well aware, with that one act he destroyed my career, half my earthly friendships, my livelihood and - so he hoped! - my reason for returning to Earth."

"Why, that arrogant, manipulative old..!"

"All true. But he had forgotten something. He had quite forgotten that Don Blake was just me in disguise, not some separate being...Anyway, I demanded that he return the enchantment to me. He refused. Then I lost my temper. I told him that whatever his decision I would no longer live in Asgard. That I would return to Earth and pursue whatever career I chose. He grew furious. We almost came to blows. In the end I stormed from the throne-room with his voice ringing in my ears. He called after me that if I left the Realm just once more he would see to it that I never returned. And that is what happened."

"But Thor...He has exiled you so many times! Did he really mean it?"

"Oh yes. You shall hear how much he meant it. I returned to Earth to take up what threads I could of my life."

"I know you went back to the Avengers. That was in the papers too. They also told us that Don Blake had reappeared as team doctor. I assumed that was you in your secret identity, like before. It never occurred to me that this might have changed."

"It was simple in the end. I knew did not need my father's magic. It would have been more convenient, that's all...Even as I raged at my father I prayed that he would remain...forgetful. When I got back to the States I went to SHIELD. Nick Fury and a few others spoke to the AMA on my behalf and I got my medical license back. I lived in New York for three years or more after that, working with the Avengers. I also helped run free clinics in a couple of areas; AIDS, TB, that kind of thing. Looking back, I tried a little too hard to stay busy."

"Now that sounds like the Don Blake I knew. He always was a workaholic...But that isn't the end of the story, is it, Thor? I know you went back to the Avengers; you've told me what you were doing some time after that; but there's a gap. Something happened, didn't it?"

"Something did. But...What about you, Jane? I feel as though I am doing all the talking..."

"That's all right. I want to hear about it. I wasn't doing much at the time. We were living in New Jersey, far from the madding crowd and all that. I had a son. James. Keith was so delighted to have a son...The whole time you were with the Avengers I was being a suburban housewife, proud to keep a nice home and to raise children for my clever doctor husband." She smiled, but the expression did not reach her eyes. 

"Jane?" When she said nothing, Thor went on. "There is a gap in your story as well. Just a few years later you were working as a nurse again and it sounded very much as though you were on your own."

"That's right. I...It's no good, Thor. I need a bit more time. Another drink?"

"No, I'm okay." He took another sip from his barely-tasted wine. It was good, as good as the vintners of Asgard could ever have managed; but drunkenness held no attractions at that moment. Thor watched as Jane poured more wine into her glass and swallowed half of it straight off. It was none of his business. "If you're sure?"

"Sure I'm sure." Jane seemed immensely relieved at his agreement. "Please go on..."

"Well, then. I was with the Avengers. Those three years were busy. A lot of major cases. You'll remember the business with Graydon Creed - that alone went on for at least six months..."

"You started off fighting on the wrong side as well, didn't you?! Everyone thought Magneto and the X-men were the enemies. A good thing you worked out what was going on in time..."

"Mm. A short while after that everything was quiet. It was a Tuesday morning. We even had some civilians visiting the mansion. Hank McCoy's parents were there; and Julia Carpenter as well. She's an Avenger, true; but she had her seven-year-old daughter with her...I was in the gym with Wanda and Century. Suddenly the internal communications system came on-line. All any of us could hear were screams...We raced upstairs. The mansion was under attack by demons; Surtur's demons, just like those we fought in the war. As soon as I appeared they concentrated their attack on me, almost overwhelming me where I stood...We fought back, but they were numberless, appearing through some dimensional rift as fast as we could slay them."

"Oh, I think I heard some of this!" Jane said. "That must have been when Hawkeye got killed. There weren't many details in the papers; just that some alien army had invaded the mansion."

"That's right. Hank's mother died too. Caught in the cross-fire. We were just beginning to think that this time we really were going to be beaten - as I said, they just kept coming as fast as we could deal with them - when their leader stepped aside from the battle, threw back his head and laughed. He called out to his troops that it was time; that their work on earth was over; that there were greater prizes to be won. Then they just...disappeared."

Thor took a long, deep breath and swallowed some wine. "After that...well. It was chaos. I confirmed the two deaths. Too much time had passed; there was nothing to be done for either of them. I got the injured to the infirmary and started their treatment. And all the time I was wondering...It was not difficult in the end to work out what was going on. They were Surtur's hordes and Surtur has only, ever, had one real target: Asgard. The demons had been sent both to lure me into the Last Battle and to delay me until it was too late for me to make a difference. But neither they nor their Lord knew about Odin's ban. It was not possible for me to enter the Golden Realm. Odin's magics kept me out."

"Surely he could have removed his own wards if he was in desperate straits, Thor?"

"Of course he could. I have wondered almost every day since then why he did not. I tried. I tried many times to breach that magical wall. I did not succeed; but in the end, suddenly, there was no more resistance. The barrier had simply...gone. I knew by then what that had to mean. Sorceries fail when the sorcerer is dead. My father's own command had kept me from my homeland; and when I reached it, it had fallen."

"Odin is _dead_? So it came, at last..." Jane sat back in shock, staring at her companion. This was one possibility which she had not anticipated. 

"Yes. Ragnarok came at last, in a way which no prophet had foretold. And I wasn't there. That's the worst of it, Jane. I was too late."

"Thor, that wasn't your fault!"

"I have told myself that so many times...The Last Battle took place on the plain called Vigrid. For thousands of years the Einherjar, the heroes of Valhalla, had practised the arts of war in that place; and there, finally, they died. They were the lucky ones. They were human; they had sojourned with us for just one purpose. That complete, they were able at last to move on to their destiny. Most of the dead were Asgardian. For us, there is no escape from Hela's grasp until the universe itself reaches an end..."

Jane gasped faintly, her eyes wide. "I suppose I knew that," she said. "But hearing you say it straight out..."

"We of Asgard all know exactly where we are going, Jane. Every one of us...But let me go on. I reached the battlefield long after the fighting was over. There, I found only corpses; and a few grievously wounded survivors. The skills I used in Asgard that day were those of the surgeon, not of the warrior. Skills my father gave me almost...by mistake. Only thus was I able to save the lives of Balder and of Hildegarde the Valkyrie. There were others as well; so few...For my father and for most of my old friends I had come too late. And I was too late for Sif."

"Sif! You mean that she's..." 

"Oh yes. We had fallen out, you know; finally fallen out, when I left Asgard the last time. She asked me to stay and when I refused she turned her back on me; and I knew that was the end of it. I guess my father's magics were weakening even then. I felt...relief. Because I knew, somewhere in me, that it had been Odin's manipulation that had brought us together. But that did not make it any easier..." Thor described his discovery of Sif, dying upon Vigrid. "She was beyond my help. I knew that. She was injured so gravely that had I been earlier I could only have prolonged her dying, not saved her life. But she called my name, Jane, as though she felt...it was as though she had willed herself to remain alive until I came to save her; and I could not do it. She walks with Hela now. It's over. But I hear her cry in my dreams every night..."

"I'm so sorry," Jane said. "I only met her once. I liked her, though I don't think she liked me very much. She didn't deserve that. Nobody could."

"I know." Thor was silent for a moment. "And, as I said, it is over. It was written in her fate when she was born."

Thor truly believed that, Jane could tell. That was almost the worst thing of all. She said quietly, "So what did you do then?"

"I was the only survivor of Asgard who was entirely hale. It took me three days and three nights, but I completed the task. I gathered together the corpses of my friends and family and those of the citizenry of Asgard and gave them what funeral I could. For Odin, Loki..."

"Loki?"

"Yes. I found even my brother among the dead, though it is true that I do not know on which side he fought...For my friends and for those who had been among the great of the Realm I built a great pyre. The rest I buried, using Mjolnir's power to dig a pit for them. Surtur, true to his nature, had put Asgard to the torch. There was not enough wood left in all the Realm to burn so many corpses...The pyre burned for a day and a night. When it was over I gathered the bones and placed each man's and each woman's remains beneath a stony howe. I carved runes for their grave-markers and I colored them with my own blood. I nursed the few survivors back to health, alone; the healers had fled or had died in battle with the soldiery. Then I accompanied Balder and his companions as they searched the ruined towns for the few women and their children who had remained behind and whom the demons had not murdered. I went with them as bodyguard to the land of the Norns, where they sought refuge. And then I returned to Earth."

"What about Surtur? Didn't he try to stop you?"

"I believe that demon's only object was the destruction of Asgard and the death of its Lord. He accomplished both these things easily, for he had total surprise. Then, satisfied, he returned to his pits. I saw not a single demon during my sojourn in Asgard and I have seen none since. And before you ask, No; I did not seek to claim my inheritance. That...has passed me by. Odin's godhead should have claimed an heir; and it did not. Lacking that, I was an embarrassment and an object of pity to the remnant of my people once they had re-established themselves. I preferred to let Balder lead them; and he, good friend that he is, understood my reasoning. That is how it has been since. And that is my story, Jane, or the more important part of it. Now, what of you?"

As he spoke, Thor saw his companion's face change. The brittle facade was gone; gone also was the professional listening mode into which his tale had propelled her. There was something beyond pain in her face, like a cry that lacked only his permission to be uttered. "Please, Jane. Tell me about it?"

"I don't know how I dare after hearing your story, Thor. Mine is nothing...special..."

"Oh, Jane. Maybe it does not contain such a proportion of battle and death...But there is much to tell. I can see it in your face. Can you?"

"Yes. I can. I have to, I guess." Jane poured a cup of coffee from the cafetière on the table and tasted it. "Still warm. Want some?"

"Yes please."

As she poured the drink Jane began to speak, as though it were easier if she did not have to look at her companion. "I told you that Keith and I settled down in New Jersey and that we had James. I was really happy then. I didn't know where you were and I wasn't really bothered. I thought of you - of Don - as an old friend and colleague. Keith and Jimmy were the only people in my life."

"I knew you had a baby. I saw you once...just in passing. It was about a year after you got married. You were seven or eight months pregnant at the time. At least I still recognised my_ old friend_ Jane..."

"And if I had seen you I would have known my _old friend_ Thor as well...That's just how it was, wasn't it? Well, three years after Jimmy was born I was expecting another baby. It was a normal pregnancy. There was no indication that anything was wrong, no warning..." Jane took another drink.

When Thor said nothing, she continued. "One night I was woken by the child kicking. I suspected nothing. Keith lay beside me in the bed. I leaned over to kiss him. I will always be glad I did that...I knew that I would not be able to get back to sleep immediately, so I got up to make a hot drink. On the way downstairs I looked in on Jimmy. He was sleeping peacefully with a lock of his hair curled on his cheek and his thumb in his mouth..." 

Jane paused. She looked up. Thor saw the tears on her cheeks. As he watched more flowed, silently; a few drops fell from her chin on to the front of her shirt. "Jane, you don't have to..."

"_Yes I do_. I walked on down the hallway toward the stairs. And suddenly I was not in the house any more. It was as though I had been transported to some vast open space. There were stars in the sky and a wind was blowing. I did not recognise the constellations. I knew I had never seen that sky before...It was very cold. I was naked, though I had been wearing my housecoat; and I felt different. It took a few moments for me to realise that this was because I was no longer pregnant. And then_ he_ was there, standing right in front of me."

"Ah..."

"Yes. He did not speak, but he gazed into my eyes with that one blue eye of his; and the raven on his shoulder cawed once. At that moment I remembered everything, Thor. I remembered us in Asgard. I remembered Odin setting me a test which he knew I had to fail. I remembered his magic separating us and directing me into the arms of Keith Kincaid; a man who had no existence of his own but who was a mere shell, a creature of Odin's manufactured on the same basis as 'Don Blake', using a mortal template which neither of us will ever know. I knew then that since our separation I had not, at any time, been my own woman. I had simply served your father's purposes. Thor, I nearly went mad then. Can you imagine what it is like to discover that your entire life has been a lie?"

"Jane, you must know the answer to that. I know very well. My life has been little else for years. What happened then?"

"I felt...Odin lifted his right hand, the hand that holds the Sceptre of the Realm. He faded from my sight and the stars too began to fade, leaving me in darkness. And then I felt a strange sensation. It was as though Keith took me in his arms and kissed me, although I could see nothing. Then my son James pulled at my hand and I lifted him up to hold him. And last of all a little baby girl appeared in the air before me and gave me a kiss upon my cheek. Although it was quite dark by then hers was the only face I saw; and I have never forgotten it, although it was a stranger's face...And then the light faded altogether and I grew warm again and I knew I was home."

"I am...quite afraid of the end of this story."

"Yes. The house was empty, Thor. Keith was gone and his side of the bed had not been slept in. James too had vanished as though he had never been. The room which had been the nursery was empty, unfurnished and unused. And my belly was as flat in reality as it had been in my vision. I _was_ no longer pregnant. My unborn child, like my son and my husband, had disappeared as though she had never existed, leaving me alone."

Thor could only shake his head in horror. It was worse than he could have imagined; but it all made a perverse kind of sense. Softly he asked Jane, "What did you do then?"

"I was in shock for several months. I functioned automatically, dealing with life as it occurred. I even went to see a gynecologist. I concocted some story about thinking I had miscarried. He confirmed that which I had already guessed: that I had never been pregnant and had never given birth. None of it had ever happened. I think he thought I was crazy."

Thor shook his head again. There was nothing appropriate to be said.

"Gradually I discovered that every trace of Keith's and Jimmy's existence had been eradicated. My neighbours all called me 'Miss Foster'; they were sure the house had always been occupied by a single woman of independent means. The house turned out to belong to me alone, bought with my aunt's legacy years before. There was no trace of Keith's belongings nor of Jimmy's toys. The AMA had never heard of a Keith Kincaid. Yet at the same time I remembered my marriage and my children. I think I did go a little mad. I sold the house and gave most of the proceeds to the ASPCC. I rented a tiny flat in Brooklyn, near where I lived when we were last together. I saw a counsellor, but in the end I had to give up, because I had to deceive her, telling her my family had died. I changed my name; St. Clair was my mother's maiden name...In the end I decided to get in touch with you, just because you were the only person I could think of to whom I could tell the whole story. But when I contacted the Avengers they told me you had left three months before without giving a forwarding address."

"Yes. That confirms it. Jane, I am sure I know what happened. It was cruel; but he could not prevent that. It was beyond his power. He had to bring his own misdeeds to their...conclusion."

"What do you mean, Thor?"

"You said it was three years after James was born. It was at about that time that Surtur's assault came. I think that Odin remembered about you and decided to release you, knowing that he was about to die. If he had done nothing your family would have vanished from your side without warning. Would that have been preferable?" 

"No. Not at all. But he took my daughter, Thor. I can never forgive him that."

"I would not expect it. But consider that he has gone down to Hel with all this on his conscience and with your hatred to pursue him. He will have much time to reflect upon it..."

"Good! I'm glad. I hope it hurts..."

Jane had shrunk in her seat, as if to escape from a nightmare. There was silence for several minutes. Although Thor knew that none of this was his fault, he felt a sense of guilt which silenced him. He shook his head again. For all the things his father had done he had still credited the old man with knowledge and wisdom and power. That might have been true as far as his own people were concerned, for all he had encouraged them to believe untrue things of themselves. But Odin had evidently been most unwise to tangle directly with human beings; let alone to think he could get away with passing off his son as one of them. 

_It always was a tasteless parody, wasn't it_? Thor thought with a tinge of hysteria. _Perhaps we are all being punished_.

Then Jane spoke again. "That was all ten years ago, Thor. Since then...Well, as I said, I have been working. Doing nothing much. But how did you come to work for the Jesuits, of all people?"

"You can still be concerned about my story after all that? You amaze me, Jane."

"Of course I'm...concerned. About you..."

"Briefly, then. By the time I returned to earth I had decided what I was going to do. I went to my oldest friend, Tony Stark. He was the only one I told and I swore him to secrecy. That is why the Avengers could give you no information. I wrapped the Hammer in a silken cloth, as a form of magical protection. Then I stowed it in an old medical bag and forgot about it. I was in shock; it was madness, a subtle kind of madness...I went to the New York docks and hung around the bars until I found a sea-captain looking for a ship's doctor. I worked my way around the world on various ships, for more than two years; but after that I decided to strike out for something more worth while. I went to Genosha with the idea - vague enough, I admit - of being of some help in the care of their mutates. You remember, most of them got that virus...As it turned out, _certain persons_ over there did not...appreciate my endeavours. I left, along with several other foreign aid workers, in...a hurry. But it was there that I came into contact with the Order and decided to work for them."

"That must have been...strange, for you..."

"At first. It was one of those turns of fate. Once one has established contacts within an institution of that kind, one will never be short of work, if one wants it. The pay is miserable, but the work is satisfying. So I stayed, and stayed..."

"And recently you left. Or you would not be here. Unless the Society of Jesus has opened a mission in London..."

"They have several, as a matter of fact. But that is not why I am here. I came in response to a call. Less than a month ago someone..._invoked_ me; and the denial I had practised for years evaporated as though it had never been. As you can imagine I could not give my true reason for leaving to the priests...Then I heard about strange events on these shores and I felt impelled - beyond all reason, looking back on it - to investigate. So here I am..."

"And here we are..."

"That's right."

For minutes Thor and Jane just sat, looking at one another. Thor drank coffee that was almost cold. Jane finished the wine. Then Thor recalled his excuse for visiting; the entire reason he was supposed to be there. He got up, fetched his briefcase and fished out Jane's photographic folder.

"I brought it back," he said, smiling.

"You still have yours, then?" Jane grinned. "You know, I thought you would."

"I could never have parted with it." Thor told Jane where his copy was kept. This information seemed to breach another barrier. Jane's eyes filled with tears. As she took the folder from Thor she began to weep in earnest, silently, eyes closed, leaning back in her chair.

"It was that precious to you, then?" she murmured. Then her sobs became too deep to allow her to speak.

Thor could stand this for only a few seconds. He reached out a hand once more and grasped Jane's right hand, wishing to comfort, though he was not certain that he, of all people, would ever be able to do such a thing. Then abruptly, she opened her eyes and, still weeping, got to her feet, pulling him toward her. "Kiss me," she said. "Hold me. Thor. Touch me. I want your hands on me. Please."

Thor never knew whether he drew Jane toward him, or she drew him to her. Whichever it was, suddenly they were holding each other as if neither had ever intended anything else. He felt Jane caress his back, beneath his shirt; then with one hand she reached down to the base of his spine, while the other moved along his ribs, across his chest. He touched her neck, her shoulder, the curve of her breast through her thin clothing; and he kissed her mouth. 

Neither of them could ever quite remember how they reached her bed, nor when they decided that that was where they must go. The chief memory either of them had beyond their desire and its fulfilment was of the amazement with which they realised that no-one was going to stop them.

  


They both thought, later, that they had slept for a while. Jane knew that she had been asleep because she woke convinced, just for a moment, that everything that had happened since Thor arrived had been just another lonely woman's dream; then she saw the golden god stretched out beside her on her bed. Her gasp woke Thor who, to her amazement, seemed as awe-stricken as she was herself. 

They reached out for one another again. There was no imaginable reason why not. Only then did the screams from outside the apartment become loud enough to disturb them.

  


Thor reached the living room window first, half-dressed, still dragging his T-shirt over his head. Outside the peaceful scene of nannies and babies had been dreadfully interrupted. No casualties were visible, though several people stood around the square rooted to the spot with terror, shouting for help. Within the railed-off area of parkland, its head at the level of fifth-floor windows, its breath a scorching flame, its terrible wings outspread, its scales deep green and gold, stood the twin of the water-dragon Thor had seen on the television only a week before. 

Moments later Jane arrived and stood beside her lover, gazing at the scene. It caused her to recall some of the disadvantages of their old relationship.

"Jane, whoever is causing this just shouldn't know I am here. It is black witchcraft. I must go down. I'm sorry."

"Of course you must go. It's not your fault. Be careful. I'm going to call the police."

"Aye..." Thor retrieved his hammer from its case and returned to the window.

"What about your costume?"

"The hammer's magic is altered since Odin died. I am wearing all that I have." 

"Right...!"

Jane watched as Thor opened the window and climbed onto the sill, barefoot, dressed as he was in black T-shirt and jeans. He whirled his hammer about his head and flung himself toward the monster, apparently heedless of his personal safety. As so often in the past, Jane found herself almost unable to watch. She dialled 999 and gave her address to the operator, reporting another, potentially dangerous-looking, mysterious appearance. Then she decided that she could not just sit there. She might not realistically be able to do anything, but it was inconceivable that she should hide away while the most important person in her life risked so much, just outside. Jane took her keys and ran down the corridor to her private lift.

  


The dragon breathed flame. Thor, circling, looking for advantage, felt the heat of it as he passed. This was no illusion, no appearance with power to terrorise but not to hurt. It was a solid, potent creature; in all detectable ways as living as he was himself. As living as all the other 'appearances' had seemed to be. The most important thing was to protect the human bystanders. Seeking to draw the dragon's attention, to lead it, if possible, away from this too-well-frequented place, Thor flew directly toward it and landed to perch behind its head, where the fiery breath could not reach him. Raising his hammer, he dealt the creature a blow which might have shaken Yggdrasil, direct to the back of its skull.

Mjolnir's blow rang on bone, solid as granite and as unyielding. The creature tossed its head and shook it, seeking to dislodge the gnat which had bitten it. Thor took to the air again, directing his second strike to the top of the head just between the eyes, then moving away before it could attempt to breathe in his direction. 

It was just as he thought. The dragon's hide was impervious to his hammer-blows. Thor realised that he would have to call upon his magical powers in order to have a hope of defeating this monster; that, or find a piercing weapon of some sort which might pass between its scales. But the strikes did seem to be having some effect. The creature shifted, swinging its head around to look for its enemy. It shrugged, lifting its great wings; it stretched them forth, perhaps seeking to take to the air. Thor decided that if it should prove impossible for him to destroy the monster, he might encourage this development. If the dragon could at least be persuaded to follow him, then he would allow this; he might thus remove it to a less populated area. He swung back down again, this time to belabour its neck and chest. Meanwhile, in response to his mental command, in what had been a clear and sunlit sky the storm-clouds began to gather. 

Jane St. Clair stepped out of the doorway of her apartment block. In the square's normally peaceful bit of parkland she could see nothing but the body and wings of the dragon, whose head reached above her fifty feet into the air. Its wings beat back and forth, creating a wind almost strong enough to knock any mere humans in the vicinity off their feet; its head swept around as if in search of something. As Jane watched Thor smote the beast again with his hammer and then flew rapidly across its field of vision, as though trying to draw its attention. She looked again; evidently that was exactly what he was trying to do. The dragon was on its feet now, wings beating, though these looked as if they could never be large enough to bear such an enormous body from the ground. It breathed flame, missing Thor by feet. Jane could see his clothing char even from where she stood.

She gasped, gathering herself to cry out to her lover, though she knew that he would not be able to hear. It was not something that she could help. But even as she opened her mouth to shout she saw that there was someone else in the square, standing not ten feet away from one of the monster's great claws.

It was a young woman. Her hair was long and fair and half her face was hidden by a multicoloured mask, as if she were some supervillain; an impression only heightened by the close-fitting costume that she wore. She was not afraid of the dragon, by her bearing. In fact, from the way she was standing with arms upraised, not only was she not its victim; she was its master. Jane saw the wide grin on the girl's half-hidden face and felt her heart lurch. The woman was somehow causing all this; and she was loving her work. Frantically Jane screamed out to Thor, pointing at the enemy which she could see, but which was out of her lover's line of sight. He flew by, circling the dragon's head at close quarters, seeking to distract it from the humans on the ground. It was only too obvious that he could not see the one who must really matter.

The storm gathered. Thor, its master, called out to it in his mind, shaping its pattern. He felt it respond even as the dragon breathed fire again, missing him even more narrowly than the last time. The lower parts of his jeans felt as though they were about to disintegrate, but as yet he was unburned himself. If this tactic did not defeat the dragon he would have to lure it away. He smote the beast once more and cried out to the thunderhead, commanding it to strike as he struck, through his hammer. 

The lightning struck between the dragon's eyes, blinding and stunning the beast even as it prepared for flight. The monster screamed aloud. Its balance lost, it began to topple.

For a moment Sophie Douglas could not believe that Thor had actually hurt her dragon. Then she realised her peril. Unless she dismissed it the dragon was real and corporeal, with all the vast weight which such a beast would have to possess; and she was right beneath it. Thor was in flight still, crying upon the storm to aid him; but she had no choice. Even as it fell toward her Sophie commanded her creature to disappear.

Jane watched. Thor turned, startled, toward the suddenly empty space of the parkland; their eyes met momentarily, but even as Jane was at last able to point him toward the real enemy, he saw her for himself. 

There was no mistaking her: the height; the deceptively sturdy build; the white-blonde hair. Thor knew her immediately, though that knowledge did not help him in the least. He still could not imagine what manner of power this could be, that could call not only a consultant orthopaedic surgeon but a creature straight from an Asgardian child's fairy-story to life before his eyes. He observed her costume. For some reason, in her garb as supervillain, the girl he knew as Sophie Douglas had elected to wear a cat-suit in a rainbow of colours. Between her breasts was a circular yin-yang symbol; but radiating out from there in wavering stripes were the red, yellow, green, blue and purple of the mystic bridge Bifrost.

Thor descended toward the ground. Sophie lifted her arms. "Hail, Thunderer!" she cried. "Or should I call you Doctor Blake?"

"Make it louder, Sophie, why don't you?" Thor muttered to himself. "I don't think Father McCarthy heard you over in Paraguay."

  


The dark watcher of the Fire of Vision saw the battle and was delighted. The child was doing well. She had barely started her campaign and already Thor was battered and, as usual, baffled by events. The time was near. The watcher prepared himself. It was necessary that he release his magic precisely as it was needed.

  


Just two streets away, Moondragon threw caution to the wind. No longer did she care who saw her, nor what they thought. The girl, the one she sought, was glowing strongly in her mind, yet there was something desperately wrong. The shielding she felt was still in place, yet it seemed as though it were stretching to a breaking point; and although she had no rational reason to believe this the psychic knew that if that shield broke and she were not there, catastrophe would ensue for the child and for everyone involved. 

Moondragon ran.

  


"Who are you?" Thor called out. "What do you want with me, child? I have done no harm to you! Even as he spoke he was aware of the contrast between his attempt to appear calm and dignified and his appearance. He was barefoot and he wore jeans that hung in tatters from his knees, more like the apparel of the Hulk than of the Lord of Storms. Frantically he sought to think; to determine just what might be happening here. Why did the girl seem to want him dead? He could not even begin to imagine.

"Thor!" the girl shouted. "I am _Gestalt_! And I am your doom!"

"Aye, many have said so," Thor replied, "And ever have their words proved false, whether they were earthly villains or the Goddess Hela herself! I warn you, Sophie; battle me further at your peril!" Slowly, he began to advance toward his adversary, allowing his right hand, in which he held Mjolnir, to hang at his side. He would make no further hostile move unless the girl did so first.

Rapidly Sophie glanced about her. The police had arrived. They were standing in an uncertain group about a riot-squad van near the apartment building from which Thor had emerged. One of their number was talking to a red-haired woman who was gesticulating toward the centre of the square. To the other side, to Sophie's great delight, a group of pressmen was visible. It was time.

"Brave words, Thunderer!"_ Gestalt_ cried. "But how can you - even you! - fight so many?" Then she threw back her head and laughed.

About her, people started to pop into existence. Thor stopped in his tracks, then watched, horrified. The Avengers: not even in their most out-of-control and wildest early days had so many of them assembled. Iron Man and Cap and the Hulk; Giant-man and Hawkeye; the Swordsman and the Black Knight; Mockingbird, Tigra and Hellcat; Wonder Man and the Wasp; Jocasta and Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel and the Vision and the Scarlet Witch and Mantis and Moondragon and the Beast and Sersi and Crystal. The X-men, the _old _X-men: Ice-man and the humanoid Beast and the Angel and Cyclops and Marvel Girl. Still they came. The Silver Surfer appeared, as did Thanos and Doctor Strange; the Enchantress and the Executioner grinned at him, for all he knew they both were dead. Demons of Muspellheim stood alongside Adam Warlock.

Sophie watched the thunder god's face. He was appalled; it was too easy to tell. Somehow she knew that his most characteristic weaknesses were his emotional transparency as well as his extreme naivety about women. She felt as though she could almost read his thoughts. He knew he was outmatched; that he would, if all these old friends and foes were to attack him, surely die that day. She held her creatures in check, watching. The pressmen were trying to approach; the police restrained them, unable otherwise to intervene. British police had little practice in coping with super-powered battles. Undoubtedly the Army was on its way; for all the good that would do. Perhaps they would call in Excalibur, or the real Avengers. All the better. She would beat them too.

"Make your peace with whatever Power you know, Thunderer," Sophie cried out. "The Valkyries shall surely have your soul this day." 

It sounded good; it sounded truly threatening, just like a genuine supervillain. But Sophie was suddenly unsure. She did not know why she had said that. It did not even sound like her. She wanted publicity; she wanted to demonstrate her own extraordinary powers - and just the fact of her existence - to the world before she died. But she was no murderer. Although she felt abruptly certain that she was quite capable of carrying out her threat, she had had no intention of killing Thor; only of beating him.

Sophie realised that she was in danger of losing concentration and thus of losing her _gestalts_. She applied herself fiercely to the task of their maintenance. Her heart rate, in her excitement, was over one hundred and sixty per minute. Her cardiac muscle required a great deal of oxygenated blood to maintain its rate and its output. And in her distracted state, with part of her mind still trying to fathom her own words, she altogether forgot about the accessory coronary arteries she had created for herself earlier in the day.

Thor, still standing with his hammer at his side, saw the 'Avengers' and 'X-men' and all the others waver, then regain solidity. And then they began to fade in earnest. Instead of the self-confident villain who had faced him a moment ago he realised that somehow, he was once more confronted by a desperately sick teenager. 

The girl who called herself _Gestalt_ seemed to crumple from within. Her strength left her; she staggered, face suddenly grey, sweat beading on her forehead. She clutched her chest. The _gestalts _guttered and went out. In their stead another monster appeared; but this one clutched at its creator, and its claws were buried in her heart.

  


Jane St. Clair had twenty years of nursing experience. She could recognise a heart case when she saw one, even if it was accompanied by strange appearances. She was a professional; and she knew when she was needed. She did not hesitate. She ran toward the square, dodging policemen and vaulting railings to reach the one who needed her help.

Thor moved as well. He reached Sophie's side in a few moments, in time to catch her as she collapsed and the gruesome apparition began to fade away. He felt for the carotid pulse, feeling with immense relief that though feeble, it beat on. "Hush," he said. "Sophie, never mind anything else. Please let me help you. I am a doctor as well. I'll see you get the care you need."

Sophie lifted her head. "Dr. Thor," she murmured. "Fancy that." Then she passed out. 

  


The watcher at the Flame leaped to his feet. That was the signal. He could not wait any longer. It would have to be..._now_.

  


Thor, holding Sophie to him, felt it first. His patient opened her eyes, and they were no longer pale sea-grey but a fiery and flashing blue; and her limbs regained their muscle-tone and grew new strength out of their depth of weakness.

She flinched back from him, pushing away. Horror and hatred was in her face, and a new awareness. She actually broke his hold, shoving herself backwards, away from him, scrambling to her feet. "Murderer!" she screamed. "Rapist! How could you pretend...You, a doctor! You are nothing but a monster....Nothing but a vicious monster, even though you are my father!"

Thor knelt immobilised, trembling in shock. He felt his own heart lurch, stop, start again; he felt the hollowness of terror in his stomach. He saw Jane from the corner of one eye, turned toward her, registered shock and disbelief on her face. "I don't know what..." he started to say.

"Who is..." Jane seemed barely capable of speech.

Thor reached out to her and saw her flinch away.

  


Moondragon used her psychic skills to fly, telekinetically, over the heads of the reporters and the police. She ignored their shouts, their orders to stop. The shields were gone. It was hard to concentrate on controlling her flight; she knew everything now. She knew what had happened to the girl; she knew who had done it and she knew why. She could sense the field as it built and she lunged for its periphery, terror at her heels. She had to get there. _Had_ to.

  


Sophie Douglas stood. She raised her arms again, but this time she called forth no _gestalts_. Light beyond that of the earthly sun struck from her hands; her hair floated, defying gravity, to create a gleaming aureole about her head. The rainbow of her costume glowed, its colours swirling. Thor, looking on, saw the colours form a pattern, a force, a tunnel in the world. 

"I am no longer Sophie, nor _Gestalt_!" the girl cried. "I am hatred and revenge incarnate; I am the Goddess Sophia! And in the name of my hatred I summon thee; I call thee out, for my mother's sake, for the sake of her whom thou dishonouredst and whose death thou didst cause. My hatred stands between thee and me for ever more, and may Hela not separate thee from it!"

Behind Sophia something moved; something or someone dressed in green reached out for the goddess even as she completed her curse. Then Thor could see only the rainbow. It formed itself into a bridge in truth. There was a flash like black lightning. Thor felt a hand grasp his shoulder; a hand which might have belonged to Jane St. Clair. Then there was nothing

  



	6. The Last Thor Story 6

6.

  


  


The field was barren and littered with rock, a grim phosphorescence which seemed to inhere in the soil itself providing the only light. Thor knew immediately where he was. The air and the feel of the place cried _Asgard_; and the desolation and the scent of blood told him that he was on the field of Vigrid, the battleground of the Einherjar where had befallen the great last battle of Ragnarok. The goddess Sophia stood before him, cold fire in her eyes, the light of divinity gleaming beneath the thin veil of her skin; and her raiment flamed with the colours of the mystic bridge.

"Father," she said, and her voice was high and strong, resonating within Thor's skull. "Father, I have called thee out. We will duel here, and one of us will die. And if there be justice in Asgard it will be thee; for my mother's blood cries out upon Midgard for vengeance."

"I know thee not," Thor said, matching his manner of speech to the goddess's own. He held the hammer still at his side, careful to give no sign of enmity. "Nor do I know who thy mother might be, for I have forced myself upon no woman; nor have I slain any, since the Frost Giantesses, who were like to destroy all the Nine Worlds, perished at my hand."

"Thou liest, thou coward," the goddess cried. "Defend thyself, if thou durst; and may Hela judge between us!"

Thor saw Jane unconscious beside him, laid across a low rocky mound. He saw the runestone which named that mound Odin's Howe, in letters carven with his own hand and dyed brown with his own life's blood. He saw another figure behind Sophia, lying still, almost lost in the gloom. He could not tell who it was; but it seemed that he, or she, was as unaware as his mortal lover of the interchange. He sprang aside, thinking first of avoiding hurt to Jane should combat ensue; and in that instant Sophia struck.

Her hands were raised before her face, their outline almost lost in the glare of light which signalled the goddess's attack. A bolt of pure force struck Thor over the heart, destroying much of the clothing on his upper body and searing the skin, but the chief effect was internal. He felt his chest filled with the fire of the goddess's power, his heart fibrillating, the moist air in his lungs turned to steam. The agony was indescribable. Thor could not prevent himself, he screamed in pain as he fell; and it seemed that all the honoured dead of that place screamed with him.

Yet Sophia might indeed be close to him. Their powers were too like, too nearly related for chance. Even as he felt the pain and the nearness of death Thor felt the very cells of his body reject the attack, throw it off, refuse to submit. His innate control of the storm and the lightning, the electrical web which binds the universe, came to his aid. His heart steadied itself; he breathed the air again. The force with which the goddess had struck him was too close, too like his own power. It could hurt him; but no more than the power inherent in his own hammer could it kill him. He was down, but he could still move; and as he moved he lifted that hammer before him, preparing a strike of his own. 

Somewhere off to one side, a red-haired head moved. Thor could see from the corner of an eye that Jane was awake; how much of his exchange with Sophia she had heard he could not tell. Desperately he called to her, "Jane? I don't know who she is. I don't know what she's talking about!" He could not tell whether or not she had heard.

"Fool!" Sophia cried. "Think not that that was my only weapon, nor that thou wilt so easily shrug off the rest. Thy concern for thy whore will be thine undoing. For I am far above thee in might!"

"So all fools say," Thor murmured. "And I am beginning to believe that I have heard this fool before..." Without standing up, he commanded his hammer to strike; and from its head a bolt of energy shot forth, streaking to its target.

Sophia seemed to stop in mid-action, reacting to shield herself. The hammer-strike broke on a splintering disc of light which appeared before her.

"Sorcery, goddess?" Thor cried, standing. "Who has been thy teacher? Need I ask?"

"It matters not, since thou canst not defeat me!" Sophia replied. She raised her hands, weaving another spell, and even as she spoke she hurled it forth. Ruby fire lanced from her. At the last possible instant Thor realised that the spell's target was not himself, but Jane. Crying out, he lunged forward, without any idea what the possible effect of the spell might be. 

  


The watcher at the Fire of Vision could not credit the thunder god's stupidity. Not only had he fallen straight into Sophia's trap; he had taken with him that woman, the red-haired mortal whom Odin had so long ago forbidden him to see again. And in doing this, he had doomed himself. His attention was divided. He was quite unable to defend both himself and his wench from the goddess's wrath. 

Perfect, the watcher thought.

He decided that he had seen enough. He would delay no longer. He had promised that he would be present for his foster-daughter's triumph; and he would be present. He turned to order his servants to tend the flames while he was gone; then he strode from the Fire-temple to the stair which led to his Hall of Magicks. 

  


Thor struggled upon the unclean earth. The blood and the fire which had consumed this place assailed his nostrils, their stink barely muted by time. He lay at the foot of his father's grave-mound; and he knew the fetters which bound him. He had often seen them wielded by Asgardian sorcerers. He knew that he might break them, given time; but he knew that he would not have that time. Whether Sophia had intended to trap Jane in order to slay her; whether she had merely sought to prevent the woman from interfering; or whether, indeed, she had anticipated his reaction and had intended all along to trap him, she had done what was needful. Thor observed her approach. Grey-violet light oozed between her clenched fingers as she prepared another sorcerous attack. Thor strained against the bonds, feeling them yield only a little. He could not know what fell magic the goddess intended to use against him, but all his instincts told him that if he could not free himself he was lost.

Sophia chanted sorcery beneath her breath, slowly approaching the trapped thunder god. Her foster-father had taught her much of magic, preparing her against this day. She had been taught that Thor had little knowledge of the unholy arts; how could he defend himself against that which he did not know? She could hardly restrain her grin of triumph as she prepared the Rune of Dissolution. 

Even her foster-father would never have dared cast this spell. It had been stolen from the halls of the All-father himself, after his death: one of the eighteen runes of making and unmaking which the Lord of Asgard had bought in his own spilled blood upon the tree of Yggdrasil. 

Moondragon lifted her head. She knew nothing of magic and little of the true depth of Thor's power, but she knew minds. Both were open to her. She felt the disgust and hatred in the psyche of the goddess Sophia, and she divined its origin. She felt the desperation of Thor, who knew that if his struggle failed he would have no other chance; and she knew its source. She saw within the thunder god's mind the image of the one who awaited him, cold arms outstretched and a skull's grin upon her face.

And Moondragon knew once again why all this was happening and how appalling a work of evil it was. All this passed through her mind in a flash; and she reacted out of instinct, without a plan, from utter terror.

From the corner of an eye Thor saw the figure moving behind Sophia. He recognised the priestess of Titan with a dreadful shock, a piece of the mysterious pattern falling abruptly into place. He looked away, closing his eyes even in the face of Sophia's rage, afraid that some movement or some glance would betray the other woman's presence.

Sophia stood feet from the god she had named her father. She observed with satisfaction that he could not bear to look upon his own death. The spell built, the power which raced through her bloodstream and her soul drawn from depths of which even her foster-father had hesitated to speak. Moments more and it would be loosed; and her mother's blood would be avenged.

"Sophie, don't do it!" Moondragon cried.

The goddess glanced around but could not see the source of the call. She turned her attention back to Thor, her chant suspended but not interrupted. The spell's sickly light grew brighter. As she raised her hands to the sky the spell was concluded and the powers of Hel and Hades and Gehenna and of the eternal darkness beyond even those dread realms were hers, surrounding her left hand with unholy glory. 

The goddess Sophia reached out that hand to Thor's unprotected chest.

"Sophie! Listen to your mother! Stop it at once!" 

As she spoke, Moondragon did the only other thing she could do. She opened her mind to them all: to Thor, and to Sophia, and even to Jane St. Clair. She had no choice. It must all be shown to them: the truth, even that truth which she had told to no-one, the truth of her most secret shame; all must be there to be read. Moondragon heaved herself to her feet as she watched them, knowing that she had done as much as she could. Now she could only stand before them and hope.

Sophia paused, her action frozen, her fingers with their burden of damnation inches from their target.

Thor cried out, a sob of pure mental pain. He turned as far as he was able and buried his face in the tainted soil, as if to shield himself. He saw all of it and, because Moondragon had no time to mitigate the effect, he felt it once again. He relived his long-ago ensorcelment by one who had called herself 'Goddess of Mind', the only one who had ever divined his chiefest weakness. He relived his seduction by the demon-born power of her sexuality. He felt also the shame with which Moondragon, the mortal Heather Douglas (and he also learned that she now accepted this was her true name), now regarded her actions. She thought of herself as a rapist; and so she was. 

Sophia remained immobile, her face registering utter shock, her eyes gazing sightless into the distance. It was presented direct to her inner mind, raw and merciless; there was no possibility of deceit. She knew that what she saw and what she felt was the truth; the truth at last, for the first time in her life. In her mother's mind she read the truth of her conception; a story as different from the great lie she had been told as it was possible to imagine. She read of her mother's 'death' and of how it had come about. It had been nothing to do with Thor. That was another lie.

Thor remembered how he had taken Moondragon to Asgard. She had claimed to be a goddess; he had decided that she should be judged as such. For the first time he learned how she had been found to be pregnant; how Odin had insisted the child be raised in Asgard, a place where Moondragon had no wish to remain; and how the girl had been given to be fostered by a peasant couple with no children of their own. Moondragon had then returned to earth to begin her reform; a reform interrupted first by a mental breakdown and then by her apparent death, which had been in fact an exorcism. The evil force which had possessed her had been driven forth. Then she had managed to unite with her new body, grown on her adopted home of Titan from one of her own cells, given up for such a purpose long before.

Sophie learned that it had been Moondragon's own choice to allow the demon-dragon to use her. Thor had had nothing to do with it. No-one had been responsible for her descent into evil save she herself. She had also known exactly what the cost would be, both to herself and to her friends, to drive the demon out. People, good people, including one of Odin's own Valkyries, had offered themselves to Hela in doing that. That Hela had not been able to take them had been due solely to the presence of that Valkyrie, Brunnhilde, who had guided them along the paths between the lands of the living and of the dead. She read of her foster-father's other deceits. He had told her that she had been entrusted to him to raise; yet Odin had intended for her to be brought up as a simple daughter of Asgard, not as a necromancer's apprentice. 

Thor learned finally that now, Moondragon was, in every way, no longer the woman he had known. The old Moondragon would never have exposed her inner being like this; nor would she have been, as this woman who stood before him was, a penitent who begged with her whole mind for his forgiveness. And deep within Sophie's unconscious self, in a place laid bare to him by Moondragon's crude psychic linkage, he thought, and then he was certain, that he detected something else: something unknown even to the 'Goddess Sophia'. He stared at the girl - at his daughter - for just a moment, in astonishment. And then he knew what must be done.

Sophie Douglas read another truth in her mother's mind. Her entire life too had been a lie: her 'memories' magical implants; her 'aunt' a stranger enspelled. The death-rune guttered and dissolved. The magical fetters fell away into nothingness as their maker surrendered. Sophie screamed and flung herself at her mother, crying like a child. 

Jane St. Clair felt it all in wonder and in sorrow for Moondragon and above all for Sophie; yet her chief emotion was thankfulness. For minutes she had been confronted with the possibility that everything Thor had said to her had been a lie as well. Had that been the case, she knew that she really would have gone crazy. She would have been better off dead. And it was then that she realised that he, Thor, was all she had; and that this had been true since the first moment she had set eyes on him. She dragged herself up on to one of the rocks of Vigrid and sat there, shaking with reaction. She watched as Moondragon, as soon as her daughter could stand unaided, tried to throw herself at Thor's feet; only for the god to prevent her, as he had prevented Shirley Baxter weeks before. She watched and only smiled as he took the woman's hands, gently assuring her that he felt no anger toward her. He knew that she had been possessed, and that was enough; there was nothing to forgive. 

Jane saw Sophie standing between the two of them, moving as if to take her father's hand; and then she saw the change that came over the girl as she remembered something so dreadful that everything else would have to wait. 

"He's coming!" Sophie said. "He said he'd be here! He's been watching me ever since I came to earth - and he said he'd come to watch my triumph. Even if he doesn't know what's happened he'll still be here any minute. What are we going to do?"

"I know who you mean," Thor said. "And I know why you refuse to say his name. I know his handiwork so well. I could hear his words in your mouth, Sophie. How easy for him, after all, to transform a corpse into his own image. You are speaking of your...foster-father. My dear, and never as deceased as one might wish him, foster-brother Loki."

"Yes," said Sophie. "Him. I don't think I can stop him. The spells which might do it are ones I don't dare cast. Like the one I would - Father Odin, wherever he may be, forgive me - have used on you. Besides, he would be able to stop me. Masters make sure they can do that with their apprentices. He can stop my tongue at a glance. Can any of you do anything?"

"I have fought him many times before," Thor said. "I have never truly defeated him. Together we can try. And there is one other thing..."

"What's that...Father?"

Thor considered for a moment. "Will you trust me for now?" he said. "If he were to read it in your mind..."

Sophie caught her father's eye. That piercing blue gaze told her nothing and everything. Many times her foster-father had told her of this god's stupidity; and that was yet another deceit, perhaps the prideful sorcerer's deceit of himself. There was a wisdom in her father's glance which she hesitated to question.

"Are you really a mutant, Sophie?" Jane suddenly asked. 

"You mean the _gestalt_ power?" said Sophie, turning around. "It isn't part of the magic I was taught, if that's what you mean. Nor are my lightning-bolts. I really am Thor's daughter..."

"It's okay, really," Jane said with a lopsided smile. "I don't mind. Well," and she glanced sidelong at Thor, "Not that much, anyway...But listen, Sophie. I have an idea."

  


Loki stepped between the worlds with a master's ease. The dimensions and the universes were as familiar to him as his hall and its private little plane of existence; and many of them acknowledged his might and trembled before him. Those which did not he avoided on this occasion. He could tolerate no further delay.

The portal shimmered before him. Spacetime parted to let its master pass. Loki raised his arms in triumph; then he paused, sagged a little, gazed about him in dismay.

The plain of Vigrid was deserted. The phosphorescence and the stench of blood and the stones of the grave-mounds were all that met his disbelieving senses. Nothing moved; nor were there any bodies to be seen. No Thor; no cringing mortal woman; and above all, no sign of Sophia.

Loki did not panic. He had lived too long and had seen too many strange things (many of which he had caused) to do such a thing. He did not believe for a moment that his foster-brother could have defeated the goddess, nor that they might, in the brief time since his last scrying, have departed for some other place. He invoked his magic and reached out with his occult senses to determine what might have occurred. Moments later, overcome by the ludicrousness of it all, Loki placed his hands on his hips and laughed.

"Sophia! And my dear brother! Come out! Your stupidity is showing. You think that a simple spell of invisibility can hide you from me? From _me_? I care not whether you have changed sides, foster-daughter. You are all at my mercy, in this place and on this occasion. Show yourselves, for if you compel me to bring you back to sight, I shall not be gentle!"

"No need for that, god of evil," a woman's soft voice said. 

Loki turned toward the sound and was astonished to see the mortal red-head standing, apparently alone, not twenty feet away from him. 

"Nurse Foster, I presume?" Loki gave an ironic bow. "You have grown bold, my dear. A far cry from the timid maiden my foster-father despatched from Asgard with a flea in her ear. But I fear you are beneath my notice, Jane. Stand aside. I have enemies worthy of my might in this place." 

"I have grown bold, Loki. Yet I will stand aside. But only because there are others whose claim on your head is greater than mine." Jane returned the evil one's bow with an equally ironic curtsey. Then she stepped aside with a flourish to reveal that which Loki had so far failed to notice: that whatever had concealed the other protagonists until this moment had been abolished and that_ four_ other figures now met his gaze.

With disbelieving eyes Loki gazed on the uninjured, though unprecendentedly ragged, form of his foster-brother Thor; and on Sophie Douglas, who not only stood beside her father but held his hand as if she would never let it go. She also held, at her other side, the hand of a woman whom Loki had not until this moment realised was present: a shaven-headed woman dressed in green whose appearance was all too familiar to the Asgardian sorcerer. 

"_You_!" Loki gasped.

"Yes, evil one. How gratifying that you remember me. I am not sure, being only a mortal, that I could influence your mind for long. I had some success with Thor; but even he, who is no psychic adept, evaded me swiftly. Fortunately, though, I do not have to exercise such influence. Our comrade shall see to your despatch."

Loki was speechless, deprived suddenly of all his boasts. Silently he watched as a being who was in all detectable respects his own twin approached him from behind parents and child. This 'Loki' was an identical copy of himself to all appearances; but it took the first of the _gestalt_'s spells to convince the god of evil that he truly had anything to fear from this apparition. Before he could raise any shield a net of light bound him, holding him immobile, unable to return spell for spell.

Savagely, triumphantly, Sophie Douglas grinned. "You trained me, _foster-father_," she said; and she made the acknowledgement of their relationship sound like a curse. "You brought my mutant powers as well as my magical potential to their fullest flowering. And you have taken from me the weak, sick mortal shell you had me wear to engage the sympathies of the healer who is my father; and you have given me back my birthright. My godly power is added to that of the mutant _Gestalt_. You will find that my Loki - whose entire purpose, whose joy, is to oppose you - is neither as temporary nor as dependent on my concentration as most such projections. You realise, don't you, that due to accident of birth, my power is almost limitless? You must have known, you were so careful to keep the truth from me. What shall it be next, O most evil one? Your own personal Dormammu to fight? Or Odin, perhaps?"

"Oh no," Loki muttered. "Oh no..."

Sophie's _gestalt _Loki raised his hands again in a complex gesture. He murmured soft magic beneath his breath. The bound god of evil turned into a kangaroo. Another gesture; Loki was a warthog. Then he became in turn a three-toed sloth; a moose; a baboon. 

"Do it now, Father," Sophie said, her voice full of triumph, yet tinged with sorrow. "Do it now."

"No..." said Thor.

"Father...!?"

"No, child. _You _do it." And to Sophie's astonishment and to that of the others who looked on, Thor held out the hammer Mjolnir to his daughter and gestured for her to take it. 

Loki struggled within the net. Jane St. Clair, watching, saw realisation dawn in his face; and a horror such as she had never seen. He thrashed about, vainly seeking release. Overwhelmed by the magnitude of his own folly, he could not voice the cry he uttered; only a whispered _No_...reached the ears of those who watched.

Sophie, baffled and overawed, reached out a hand to the magical weapon which her father proffered. For a moment their right hands both grasped its handle; then the girl realised that Thor had released his hold. The hammer, that notorious burden, was not heavy. Mjolnir pulsated in her hand with an ancient and deathless power. Its head glowed first softly and then with a blue-white heat. A soundless explosion of light erupted from Sophie's inner mind through the holy thing she held. She was consumed by it and she was born; her world was unmade and it was created.

"Father!" Sophia cried, though she did not speak to Thor. "Father, must it be? Ah, Father, yes..." 

"Sophie...?" Moondragon gasped. She looked at the thunder god; she saw him stand with his eyes open to the light which dazzled her. He nodded his head once; and he smiled. 

Sophia lifted the hammer above her head, where it burned fiercely; but its light seemed dim beside that of her own face. She gazed upon the god she had called _master _and _foster-father_; there was sorrow in that burning countenance; and there was knowledge. She gestured; and a spatial vortex began to form about the god of evil and his counterpart. 

Loki seemed to overcome his terror for a moment. "I defy you still!" he cried. "I shall not be bound for ever; and my vengeance shall be terrible..." 

Sophia, still encompassed by the light, replied, "Ah yes, as always. Yet my creation shall pursue you for ever, until I choose to destroy him. And I am not certain I can do that. One could call it...murder."

The last any of the group on Vigrid saw of Loki was his face, open-mouthed and horrified, visible above the clinging sorcerous bonds. The _gestalt_ had his back to the watchers, yet his posture was undoubtedly one of anticipation. "It will be a great battle!" the _gestalt_ cried. Then the warp closed and went out. Loki and his double were gone.

"What? What....?" Moondragon gasped.

"Where have you sent them, Sophie?" asked Jane. 

Thor moved forward. Sophia looked exhausted; her physical form would come to encompass such might, but this would not happen immediately. The goddess turned to him, her light paling. "I understand," she said. 

"I saw it in you, thanks to the priestess your mother," Thor said. "It was sealed with the rune _thurisaz_; Odin's message to me. It is yours by right, daughter." 

Sophia nodded. Then she grasped Mjolnir in both her hands and held it out. "Receive thy weapon, Thunderer," she said. "I would not keep it from its rightful wielder."

"The Lady of Asgard is gracious," Thor said. He knelt before the young woman who had been Sophie Douglas and, as a knight granted a weapon by his sovereign, he accepted the hammer from her hands. 

"Oh," said Jane. "So that's it."

"Please," Moondragon asked of no-one in particular, "Could someone tell me what is going on?"

  


Mjolnir's magic could carry them only to the borders of Nornland. Karnilla's defences against sorcery had been strengthened since the War; the spatial vortex which the hammer created could not breach them. Thor had plenty of time to explain events to his baffled companion as they journeyed on foot to the Queen's halls. 

"_Thurisaz_ is an ancient runic sign used by the Vikings," Thor said. "Watch where you tread, Heather; there are man-traps in these woods..."

"Thanks for the warning, thunder god. Nice family you have."

"I assure you, Karnilla is_ not_ family. And these are desperate times. Have some understanding, priestess."

"Very well. But you were saying..?"

"The name of the sign is my name and its glyph, in its most ancient form, is the hammer. That is what I saw within Sophia's psyche. There was a place hidden so deep that she did not know of it; and it was sealed, symbolically, with the sign of the Hammer. Thus I knew that only when she held the Hammer - and held it with my consent, I judge, rather than taking it by force - would that seal be broken. And it was not difficult to divine what must be beneath that seal. The Power has long been hidden from us. It was not conceivable that Odin would have withdrawn it altogether from his people, out of mere pique at his son's behaviour. He was ever the autocrat; but he was not a fool. He hid it in plain sight, in the domain of a deadly enemy; in the one place, in fact, where he was certain it would not be found. Had he passed it to me Surtur would only have renewed his assault."

"And you do not resent being...passed over?"

"No, indeed. Often have I felt that despite appearances, I was not destined for a throne. I am an adventurer; and, thanks to my father's one-time wrath, I am a healer. To be a prince is a mere accident of birth. One's destiny is that which one feels in one's heart to be right."

"Thor..." 

"Yes, Heather?"

"You realise that what you say indicates that Odin knew all along that Loki had kidnapped my daughter."

"Our daughter. Yes, I know. I cannot trust myself to comment much on that. My father's actions ever had motives within motives; and with him, right would oft come forth from many wrongs. We had our differences, my father and I. We did indeed."

  


The companions journeyed on together until they came to Queen Karnilla's keep. As they approached the moat a lookout upon the battlements observed them. Thor saw defenders rush to the walls, longbows raised. He lifted Mjolnir above his head. Momentarily he felt the disorientating sensation of a magical scan as his identity was verified; then the drawbridge was lowered and the castle's inhabitants could be seen scurrying about within, preparing a hurried welcome. 

Thor stepped onto the drawbridge with his companions. He saw Hildegarde and one or two others he knew; and then Balder himself stepped forward to greet his old friend. Thor and the three women moved onward. Thirty feet separated them from the exiled Asgardians; then twenty; then ten.

Thor and Sophia looked at each other. "Do you want to tell them, or shall I?" she asked.

  


  


Eventually the celebrations quietened down; but it was not until several days after their arrival that Thor and his companions had time to walk together in the Witch-Queen's garden before the denizens of Asgard took their leave to begin the rebuilding of their land.

"So, Father," Sophia said, "You have brought me through a dreadful night to the throne. What will you do?"

"If it be my Lady's will," Thor said with a smile, "I shall return to Earth."

"You wish to resume your career, do you not? To seek your destiny amid the blood, tears and toil of Midgard? Well, I shall not prevent you."

"Lady, you are very different from my father."

"True. And I am sure that you know why. Two bloodlines live in me. I am your daughter, and my mother's; and she is a child of Earth. This union of two peoples has long been destined. We are not so different; my very existence is proof of this. And now it has begun. I perceive that you wish to...contribute."

Thor smiled again. He had expected nothing less.

"Sophie," Jane said.

"Yes, Jane? Is it too soon to call you _stepmother_?" Sophia smiled gently and moved alongside the mortal woman. She took Jane's arm. 

"Only a little, I think. But Sophie...You never did tell us what you had done with Loki."

What have I done with him? Sophia asked. Why, nothing, Jane. I have simply...sent him home.

Since the fall of the Realm - in which I am certain he played his part - he has made a fortress of the plane of existence in which his house is built. There is no-one else there, save for unliving servants created by his magic. No-one to be harmed by any battle. And the house is surrounded by an extraordinary magical shield. He wished no intrusion; to ensure this he had to make the wards immensely strong, lest some being of a strength equal to his own should attack them. He left one Gate for his own use; the Gate through which he sent me to Earth. And I have returned him to his house along with his double; and I have sealed the Gate. None can enter to rescue them, thanks to Loki's own wards; and they cannot escape, because I have surrounded those wards with wards of my own. I think it will be a long time indeed before we hear from my 'foster-father' again.

"I hope so," said Jane. "And you will truly not stand in your father's way and mine, should we choose to return to Earth together?"

"No. I cannot see a reason. Your lover, my father, may understand better than I what has come to pass..."

"I said that for Odin, many wrongs could give birth to a right. I hardly dare think on it, but for all I know that he was not God, my father took his power from the Source; and he had much knowledge. It is quite possible that he saw far enough to see this day. My mind tells me that his actions were despicable, that I should never forgive him. But my heart...perhaps I am granting him too much insight. We may never know. Does it matter, Jane, in the end? Does it really matter?"

"Perhaps not; but I wish our destiny to be our own, not that mapped out by a dead god."

"Jane, I think it quite possible that it may be both."

They walked in silence for a while. It would soon be time to go. As the evening drew on the four companions made to return to Karnilla's mead-hall for the leave-taking feast. There, Balder and Karnilla would finally declare themselves handfasted before the people; an act long delayed which would confirm Nornland's status as an ally and friend of Asgard. The new Asgard would be founded as Sophia wished, in peace.

As they reached the gates of the hall Moondragon and Thor perceived that Sophia had something more to say to Jane St. Clair. They walked on ahead. 

Thor, I...There was something. I couldn't help seeing it. I_ had_ to link us all. There was no other way, you do understand, don't you?

Yes, Heather. I do. And I know what you mean. You seem...disturbed by it. If you want to ask, please go ahead.

I...Thor, you must remember how I used to be. I was so jealous of you. I was so jealous that I...Well. I will never cease to be thankful that you regard all that as ancient history. But I understand now that I _did not know_ what I envied. How do you bear it? What will become of you, of Jane, in the days ahead? Tell me something that will give me a little hope.

How do I bear it? Can I do anything else? Strangely, Heather - and I think you may understand this now - there are many among the gods who find that they envy human beings. Our destiny is known to us and seems inescapable. You...have a choice. This is really what was so wrong about my father's actions. As for Jane and myself, I can only hope that when the universe is gathered to its Source we may be together. Until then we will have to be content with what we have. Even though I know that in all probability, for millenia upon millenia it will be to me no more than memory, whether in Asgard on on Earth or in Hela's dark halls.

Moondragon stared at her companion, eyes wide. 

There is only one thing, Thor continued.

Which is?

The past few days have seen the birth of a new age for Asgard. None of us yet know what this may mean, for humans or for Asgardians, in the future. Hela could not, I think, claim the soul of Sophia herself, nor of anyone who was partly human, for more than a very brief time. Perhaps the death-goddess has played out her role. I do not know. And I doubt I will find out before my own life reaches its end.

Moondragon shook her head slowly. So what you told Jane is not entirely true, she said at last. You do not know. Not exactly.

Not exactly, no.

They walked on together into the feasting-hall.

Sophia turned to Jane St. Clair as soon as the others were out of sight. To Jane's astonishment, there were tears in the goddess's eyes. 

"I have something for you, Jane," Sophia said. 

"Something...?"

"My grandfather...stole it from you, so it would not be right to call it a gift. Perhaps it would be better termed...a blessing." She gulped. Suddenly, behind the power and the presence of the goddess Jane could see the teenager Sophie Douglas, still staggered by the enormity of the thing which had befallen her. "Some day I shall get used to saying things like that..." Sophia shivered; then she was solemn again. "Jane..."

Jane looked into her companion's eyes. Sophia wore the simple gold circlet which was the nearest Asgard possessed to a royal crown. The circlet glowed softly with its own light; but its light was outshone by the light of the young goddess's face. Jane did not flinch. She saw only love and respect in that countenance; Odin's hard despite had been his personal failing, not a function of his power. Then Sophia placed her hands on Jane's shoulders and quickly leaned forward to kiss her twice on the forehead, once above each eye.

Sophia turned aside and walked rapidly away into the hall. Jane noticed that as the goddess moved she wiped her eyes with her hands. Not _at all_ like Odin. But Jane felt no different. She watched nonplussed for a few moments; then she too went inside to join the feast.

  


  


A fortnight later Thor and Jane lay together on a bed covered in greetings cards.

They're still outside, you know.

I know. Parker will be in his element. Talking from a great height to the representatives of the world's media. This is one of the high points of his career!

Ha! I'm sure you're right. I did think they might have had enough of us, after the ceremony.

Malcolm was great. I'll never forget the way he faced down that guy from the _Sun_. He just stood there and...and _loomed_ at him.

I've seen videos of one or two of his matches, Jane. He used to do that to the opposition on the pitch. Sometimes they just fell over all by themselves.

Jane laughed. I can imagine...Well, it made a change for _you_ to need a bodyguard. At least there wasn't a fight.

I couldn't have stood it if there had been a fight. Did I ever tell you about Sue and Reed's wedding?

That's all the argument you need for keeping it small and private.

Well, we managed that. A best man, a matron of honour and a registrar. What more do you need? 

Katrina seemed a bit...disappointed.

`If she'd had her way she'd have had us in St. Paul's with all her titled friends. Long dress with a train - Oh, _ivory_, I think, _dahling_, since you've been married before... - her eight nieces as bridesmaids, reception at Claridges, the works. _And_ she'd have invited every superhero in New York. Quite apart from anything else, I'd have spent the next twenty years worrying about repaying her.

I was wrong, then. _That's_ all the argument you need for keeping it small and private.

Well, Jane, we had better get on with it. Pass the next one.

You did say you had another job lined up, didn't you? We could do with a computer, with a _really good_ word processor on it.

I can always borrow Tony's when I'm in New York. Commuting is hardly a problem, now is it?

I told you, I'm only going to stay here another couple of months. But it's a senior post. I can't just walk out after six weeks. I'd never work again.

I know, I know...Look, we have to get on. There are hundreds of these things. We have to acknowledge all of them, I guess. And there are some I don't even understand. Explain this one to me, for instance. Congratulations on your marriage. Just be sure to decide who's going to clean the toilet, you hear?' And that's from Katrina!

Oh, good grief...! Jane giggled. I'll tell you later. Here's one for you, now: Heard about wedding on World Service. Many congratulations. McCarthy.' 

Just one of the people I have underestimated in the past, oh, twenty years...Never mind. Now...look at this, Jane. but don't think this changes anything. Creel.' 

Oh,_ him_...And here's one from Shirley Baxter, that nurse you told me about; and one from Wanda and Century and a separate one - of course! - from Pietro; and another from Professor X...

You have evaded all my traps but even you could not escape this one. Von Doom._' Von Doom_...! I have only met him about twice. I suppose he says that to all the superheroes.

...And Tony and Nick Fury and Steve Rogers and Jubilee and Kate and Peter Wisdom and Matt Murdock and Doc Strange and Logan and Sue and Reed and...and everybody, really. _Everybody_.

You do realise, Jane, that if we had had that big society wedding your friend threatened to organise we would have had all these read out at the reception.

_Oh_ yes. That's one of the reasons I was so keen on _just doing it_. Like we should have done before; as you said.

Thor looked at Jane. He reached out a hand and touched her face, running his fingers along her jawline. Sophia's blessing shone back at him from his wife's unshadowed eyes; from her unlined forehead and from her hair, which showed not a single streak of grey. She was as beautiful in her youth as she had been in her middle age. He had no idea what she might have told her nursing colleagues; and in the circumstances neither of them much cared what others thought. 

And so, Dr. Blake'...

He reached out his other hand.

Will we be opening that practice you used to talk about? That one where the rich would finance the treatment of the poor? Do that again.

That was a great many years ago. Mm.

I know. Is that a problem? That's it.

No, not really...Good...

Well, then. As soon as we are both free of other commitments...That's_ it_...

As soon. As we. Are. Yes.

Oh, come here, Doctor Blake. Come...

Come_ here_.


End file.
